f soft, delicate light
impinging upon my closed eyelids, and I opened my eyes upon the picture
of a sky of deepest, richest, purest blue, studded with wool-like tufts
of fleecy cloud, opalescent with daintiest tints of primrose and pink as
they sailed overhead with a slow and gentle movement out from the north-
east. The eastern horizon was all aglow with ruddy orange light, up
through which soared broad, fan-like rays of white radiance--the spokes
of Phoebus' chariot wheels--that, through a scale of countless subtle
changes of tincture, gradually merged into the marvellously soft
richness of the prismatic sky. A gentle breeze, warm and sweet as a
woman's breath, lightly ruffled the surface of the sea, that heaved in
long, low hills of deep and brilliant liquid sapphire around me; and
here and there a sea-bird wheeled and swept with plaintive cries, and
slanting, motionless pinions, in long, easy, graceful curves over the
slowly undulating swell.

I sat up and looked about me vaguely and wonderingly, for the moment
forgetful of the circumstances that had placed me in so novel a
situation, and at the instant a glowing point of golden fire flashed
into view upon the eastern horizon, as the upper rim of the sun hove
above the undulating rim of the sea; and in a moment the rippling blue
of the laughing water was laced with a long, broadening wake of
gleaming, dancing, liquid gold, as the great palpitating disc of the god
of day left his ocean couch, and entered upon his journey through the
heavens.

My forgetfulness was but momentary; as the radiance and warmth of the
returning sun swept over the glittering, scintillating, golden path that
stretched from the horizon to the raft, the memory of all that had gone
before, and the apprehension of what still haply awaited me, returned,
and, as quickly as my cramped and aching limbs would allow, I staggered
to my feet, flinging anxious, eager glances all around me in search of a
sail. The horizon, however, was bare, save where the long, narrow
pinion of a wheeling sea-bird swiftly cut it for a moment here and
there; and I sighed wearily as I resumed my recumbent position upon the
raft, wondering whether rescue would ever come, or whether it was my
doom to float there, tossing hour after hour and day after day, like the
veriest waif, until thirst and starvation had wrought their will upon
me, or until another storm should arise, and the now laughing ocean
should overwhelm me i