way
up above the whirl, even in the calmest weather, and then had to wait and
watch carefully for the slack; but now we were driving right upon the pool
itself, and in such a hurricane as this!

"'To be sure,' I thought, 'we shall get there just about the slack--there
is some little hope in that'; but in the moment I cursed myself for being
so great a fool as to dream of hope at all. I knew very well that we were
doomed, had we been ten times a ninety-gun ship.

"By this time the first fury of the tempest had spent itself, or perhaps
we did not feel it much as we scudded before it; but at all events the
seas, which at first had been kept down by the wind, and lay flat and
frothing, now got up into absolute mountains.

"A singular change, too, had come over the heavens. Around in every
direction it was still as black as pitch; but nearly overhead there burst
out, all at once, a circular rift of clear sky--as clear as I ever saw,
and of a deep bright blue--and through it there blazed forth the full moon
with a luster that I never before knew her to wear. She lit up everything
about us with the greatest distinctness--but, O God, what a scene it was
to light up!

"I now made one or two attempts to speak to my brother; but in some manner
which I could not understand, the din had so increased that I could not
make him hear a single word, although I screamed at the top of my voice in
his ear. Presently he shook his head, looking as pale as death, and held
up one of his fingers, as if to say, 'Listen!'

"At first I could not make out what he meant; but soon a hideous thought
flashed upon me. I dragged my watch from its fob. It was not going. I
glanced at its face by the moonlight, and then burst into tears as I flung
it far away into the ocean. It had run down at seven o'clock! We were
behind the time of the slack, and the whirl of the Stroem was in full fury!

"When a boat is well built, properly trimmed, and not deep laden, the
waves in a strong gale, when she is going large, seem always to slip from
beneath her--which appears very strange to a landsman; and this is what is
called riding, in sea phrase.

"Well, so far we had ridden the swells very cleverly; but presently a
gigantic sea 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