the waters that were rising into the bell inch by
inch, imparted to the corpse a motion that made it dodge upwards and
downwards, as if it made efforts to touch my countenance. All was as
silent as death; for the slight agitation of the sea produced no noise.
I was gasping for breath; a short period would have put an end to my
sufferings, had not the air tubes again begun to send forth slight
hissing sounds, and a small portion of the food of the lungs came to
afford me sufficient power to contemplate, with greater distinctness and
increased agony, all the circumstances of my situation. I felt the small
boon instinctively as a relief: my breast again opened; I was able to
raise my head so as to be more beyond the touch of the floating corpse;
and as I lifted it, my eye fell on the flask of spirits that hung within
reach on the side of the bell. I now struggled to seize it, and
succeeded; but it was with many painful efforts that I got a portion of
the liquor poured into my mouth. The half-dead physical powers of my
system were, by this application, stimulated into something like
vitality, and I listened attentively, while my eye was still riveted on
the corpse that lay at my side, to the sound of the tubes. A motion of
the right limb of Vanderhoek attracted my attention, and raised a hope
that, if the air still continued to be supplied, he would recover; I
knew, too, that as the bell filled again with the atmospheric supply,
the waters would recede. But all my hopes were again prostrated; the
valve ceased; the entrance of the air was again stopped; I applied the
flask hastily again to my lips before the spasms of suffocation came
again upon me, but the power of the spirits seemed to have fled, having
no more influence over my system than a draught of water.

Thus was I again precipitated into my former condition of weakness and
helplessness--the choking symptoms of suffocation increased again in
intensity, and I was under the necessity to lie down on the seat, with
my head again on a level with the corpse of the female, that still kept
moving and dodging by my side. I was now as powerless to push it away as
I was before to remove myself from it. I felt it touch my skin. Its face
was close to mine--the pale cold cheek rubbed upon my chin and lips. The
glazed eye seemed fixed upon me, and the stump of the torn arm struck
upon me as the body moved. A higher undulation sometimes threw her
flowing hair over my eyes, where it