d its vaulted top might reach almost to the summit of
the lofty mountains. While sight thus failed me, sound was equally
unavailing, for it was always the same--a sustained and unintermittent
roar, a low, droning sound, deep and terrible, with no variations
of dashing breakers or rushing rapids or falling cataracts. Vague
thoughts of final escape came and went; but in such a situation hope
could not be sustained. The thick darkness oppressed the soul; and
at length even the glow of the distant volcanoes, which had been
gradually diminishing, grew dimmer and fainter, and finally faded out
altogether. That seemed to me to be my last sight of earthly things.
After this nothing was left. There was no longer for me such a thing
as sight; there was nothing but darkness--perpetual and eternal night.
I was buried in a cavern of rushing waters, to which there would be no
end, where I should be borne onward helplessly by the resistless tide
to a mysterious and an appalling doom.

The darkness grew so intolerable that I longed for something to dispel
it, if only for a moment. I struck a match. The air was still, and the
flame flashed out, lighting up the boat and showing the black water
around me. This made me eager to see more. I loaded both barrels of
the rifle, keeping my pistol for another purpose, and then fired one
of them. There was a tremendous report, that rang in my ears like a
hundred thunder-volleys, and rolled and reverberated far along, and
died away in endless echoes. The flash lighted up the scene for an
instant, and for an instant only; like the sudden lightning, it
revealed all around. I saw a wide expanse of water, black as ink--a
Stygian pool; but no rocks were visible, and it seemed as though I
had been carried into a subterranean sea.

I loaded the empty barrel and waited. The flash of light had revealed
nothing, yet it had distracted my thoughts, and the work of reloading
was an additional distraction. Anything was better than inaction. I
did not wish to waste my ammunition, yet I thought that an occasional
shot might serve some good purpose, if it was only to afford me some
relief from despair.

And now, as I sat with the rifle in my hands, I was aware of a
sound--new, exciting, different altogether from the murmur of
innumerable waters that filled my ears, and in sharp contrast with
the droning echoes of the rushing flood. It was a sound that spoke of
life. I heard quick, heavy pantings, as of some grea