ven troubled, as was usual when I slept, with painful dreams. I did
not dream at all; but, on awaking to consciousness, I had a dread
feeling upon me, just as if I had been cast from off the earth into
infinite space, and was rapidly floating onwards, or falling from some
great height, without ever reaching a point of rest. It was a feeling
of a most unpleasant kind--in fact, a feeling of horror.

Fortunately, it did not continue long; and as I endeavoured to rouse
myself it became less painful, and at length passed away. In its stead,
however, I felt sick at the stomach, and my head ached as though it
would split. Surely it was not the sea that had made me sick? No, it
could not be that. I was long since hardened against sea-sickness.
Even another storm would not have brought it on; but there was no
particular roughness. The ship was sailing under breezy but not stormy
weather.

Was it fever that had suddenly attacked me in a violent manner? or had I
fainted from want of strength? No; I had experienced both calamities,
but this new sensation resembled neither.

I was in reality at a loss to account for what was ailing me. In a
short time, however, my thoughts became clearer, and then the truth
dawned upon my mind. I had been in a _state of intoxication_!

Intoxication it must have been, though wine I had not tasted, nor brandy
neither--not a mouthful. I disliked it _too_ much for that; and
although there was plenty of it--or had been, for it was now all gone--
enough to have drowned myself in, I was not conscious of having drunk a
drop of it. True, a drop had passed into my mouth--a drop, or maybe a
spoonful, had gone down my throat when the torrent gushed over me; but
surely this small quantity could not have produced intoxication, even if
it had been liquor ever so much _above proof_? Impossible; it could not
have been that that produced intoxication!

And what, then? Something had made me _drunk_. Although I had never
been so in my life, yet I guessed the symptoms to mean only this.

As I continued to reflect--that is, as I grew more _sober_--the mystery
was cleared up, and I discovered the cause of my intoxication. It was
not brandy, but the "fumes" of brandy, that had done it--this, and
nothing else.

Even before entering the cask, I had noticed a decided change in my
feelings, for the fumes of the liquor, even outside, were strong enough
to make me sneeze; but this was nothing to the effluv