happened to take us
right under the counter, and bore us with it as it rose--up--up--as if
into the sky. I would not have believed that any wave could rise so
high. And then down we came with a sweep, a slide, and a plunge, that
made me feel sick and dizzy, as if I was falling from some lofty
mountain-top in a dream. But while we were up I had thrown a quick
glance around--and that one glance was all sufficient. I saw our exact
position in an instant. The Moskoe-strom whirlpool was about a quarter
of a mile dead ahead--but no more like the everyday Moskoe-strom, than
the whirl as you now see it is like a mill-race. If I had not known
where we were, and what we had to expect, I should not have recognized
the place at all. As it was, I involuntarily closed my eyes in horror.
The lids clenched themselves together as if in a spasm.

"It could not have been more than two minutes afterward until we
suddenly felt the waves subside, and were enveloped in foam. The boat
made a sharp half turn to larboard, and then shot off in its new
direction like a thunderbolt. At the same moment the roaring noise of
the water was completely drowned in a kind of shrill shriek--such a
sound as you might imagine given out by the waste-pipes of many thousand
steam-vessels letting off their steam all together. We were now in the
belt of surf that always surrounds the whirl; and I thought of course
that another moment would plunge us into the abyss--down which we could
only see indistinctly on account of the amazing velocity with which we
were borne along. The boat did not seem to sink into the water at all,
but to skim like an air-bubble upon the surface of the surge. Her
starboard side was next the whirl, and on the larboard arose the world
of ocean we had left. It stood like a huge writhing wall between us and
the horizon.

"It may appear strange, but now, when we were in the very jaws of the
gulf, I felt more composed than when we were only approaching it. Having
made up my mind to hope no more, I got rid of a great deal of that
terror which unmanned me at first. I suppose it was despair that strung
my nerves.

"It may look like boasting--but what I tell you is truth--I began to
reflect how magnificent a thing it was to die in such a manner, and how
foolish it was in me to think of so paltry a consideration as my own
individual life in view of so wonderful a manifestation of God's power.
I do believe that I blushed with shame when this idea