* *

Looking about upon the wide waste of liquid ebony on which that helpless,
past-struggling, beautiful, and apparently doomed figure was borne, I
perceived that she, in the midst of the mighty, all-mastering misery, was
not the only object in the embrace of the whirl. Both above and below were
visible fragments of wreckage--significant wreckage--plumed hats,
sword-sheaths, portfolios, epaulettes, decorations, insignia of honour, as
if here a national Argosy, laden with Opulence, Rank Intelligence, and
Honour, had gone, dismally and desperately, down to--_what_? Let those
Phlegethon walls, that Tophet-like mist, make answer!

* * * * *

And that bound, helpless, seemingly doomed, but beautiful and piteously
appealing figure on which my eyes were fixed in terror, and amaze, and
profound compassion? Alas! Yet are there some objects which enter the whirl
at a late period of the tide, which for some happy reason descend slowly
after entering, which do not reach the bottom before the turn of the tide,
which are _not completely absorbed_ ere the desperate ordeal of danger is
ended by utter submergence and entire wreck! These, conceivably, may be
whirled up again to the level of the ocean, without undergoing the fate of
those which had been drawn in more early, or absorbed more rapidly!

* * * * *

Here indeed the phantom of Hope seems to gleam forth rainbow-like even
amidst the foul mists of the Maelstroem! That beautiful agonised figure
seems yet but as it were at the edge of the whirl. Into its profound and
pestilential depths, indeed, she _can see_. And she shudders at the sight,
as must all who are interested in her fate. But the Stroem will not whirl
for ever, the hour of slack cannot be far off, and when the slope of the
sides of the vast funnel become momentarily less and less steep, when the
gyrations of the whirl grow gradually less and less violent, when the froth
and the fume disappear, and the bottom of the gulf seems slowly to uprise;
when the sky clears, and the winds go down, and the full moon rises
radiantly o'er the swaying but no longer tormented floods, shall she, that
beautiful, bound creature be found floating upon the quieting waves, sorely
buffeted, may be much scarred, bearing in her beauty ineffaceable traces of
the hideous ordeal she has undergone, but living, and _Safe_?

* * * * *

So may it b