ray more heartily
than in that hour, and when I had finished praying some sort of peace
and hope fell upon me. I thought it marvellous that I should thus have
escaped thrice from great perils within the space of a few days, first
from the sinking carak, then from pestilence and starvation in the bold
of the slave-ship, and now, if only for a while, from the cruel jaws of
the sharks. It seemed to me that I had not been preserved from dangers
which proved fatal to so many, only that I might perish miserably at
last, and even in my despair I began to hope when hope was folly; though
whether this relief was sent to me from above, or whether it was simply
that being so much alive at the moment I could not believe that I should
soon be dead, is not for me to say.

At the least my courage rose again, and I could even find heart to note
the beauty of the night. The sea was smooth as a pond, there was no
breath of wind, and now that the moon began to sink, thousands of stars
of a marvellous brightness, such as we do not see in England, gemmed the
heavens everywhere. At last these grew pale, and dawn began to flush the
east, and after it came the first rays of sunlight. But now I could not
see fifty yards around me, because of a dense mist that gathered on the
face of the quiet water, and hung there for an hour or more. When the
sun was well up and at length the mist cleared away, I perceived that I
had drifted far from the ship, of which I could only see the masts that
grew ever fainter till they vanished. Now the surface of the sea was
clear of fog except in one direction, where it hung in a thick bank of
vapour, though why it should rest there and nowhere else, I could not
understand.

Then the sun grew hot, and my sufferings commenced, for except the
draught of spirits that had been given me in the hold of the slave-ship,
I had touched no drink for a day and a night. I will not tell them
all in particular detail, it is enough to say that those can scarcely
imagine them who have never stood for hour after hour in a barrel,
bare-headed and parched with thirst, while the fierce heat of a tropical
sun beat down on them from above, and was reflected upward from the
glassy surface of the water. In time, indeed, I grew faint and dizzy,
and could hardly save myself from falling into the sea, and at last I
sank into a sort of sleep or insensibility, from which I was awakened by
a sound of screaming birds and of falling water. I looke