other mode of conveyance; the night also was fast coming
on, and to proceed to Leghorn by this dangerous route at this hour was
impossible. At Lavenza therefore he remained, resolved to hasten
to Leghorn at break of day. This was a most awful night. Although
physically exhausted, Captain Cadurcis could not sleep, and, after
some vain efforts, he quitted his restless bed on which he had laid
down without undressing, and walked forth to the harbour. Between
anxiety for Herbert and his cousin, and for the unhappy women whom he
had left behind, he was nearly distracted. He gazed on the sea, as if
some sail in sight might give him a chance of hope. His professional
experience assured him of all the danger of the squall. He could not
conceive how an open boat could live in such a sea, and an instant
return to port so soon as the squall commenced, appeared the only
chance of its salvation. Could they have reached Leghorn? It seemed
impossible. There was no hope they could now be at Sarzana, or Lerici.
When he contemplated the full contingency of what might have occurred,
his mind wandered, and refused to comprehend the possibility of the
terrible conclusion. He thought the morning would never break.

There was a cavernous rock by the seashore, that jutted into the water
like a small craggy promontory. Captain Cadurcis climbed to its top,
and then descending, reclined himself upon an inferior portion of it,
which formed a natural couch with the wave on each side. There, lying
at his length, he gazed upon the moon and stars whose brightness he
thought would never dim. The Mediterranean is a tideless sea, but the
swell of the waves, which still set in to the shore, bore occasionally
masses of sea-weed and other marine formations, and deposited them
around him, plashing, as it broke against the shore, with a melancholy
and monotonous sound. The abstraction of the scene, the hour, and the
surrounding circumstances brought, however, no refreshment to the
exhausted spirit of George Cadurcis. He could not think, indeed he did
not dare to think; but the villa of the Apennines and the open boat in
the squall flitted continually before him. His mind was feeble though
excited, and he fell into a restless and yet unmeaning reverie. As
long as he had been in action, as long as he had been hurrying along
the coast, the excitement of motion, the constant exercise of his
senses, had relieved or distracted the intolerable suspense. But this
pa