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-stroem whirlpool was about a quarter of a mile dead ahead, but no
more like the every-day Moskoe-stroem 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 water-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 the 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 crossed my mind.
After a little while I became possessed with the keenest curiosity about
the whirl itself. I positively felt a wish to explore its depths, even at
the sacrifice I was going to make; and my prin