d one
by one dropped asleep.

Knowing that we could not be far from land, and aware of our liability
to be drifted ashore during the night, it had been decided to maintain a
watch. Arthur, Morton, and I had agreed to divide the time between us
as accurately as possible, and to relieve one another in turn. The
first watch fell to Arthur, the last to me, and, after exacting a
promise from Morton, that he would not fail to awaken me when it was
fairly my turn, I laid down upon the ceiling planks, close against the
side of the boat between which, and Browne, who was next me, there was
barely room to squeeze myself.

It was a dreary night. The air was damp, and even chilly. The
weltering of the waves upon the outside of the thin plank against which
my head was pressed, made a dismal kind of music, and suggested vividly
how frail was the only barrier that separated us from the wide, dark
waste of waters, below and around.

The heavy, dirge-like swell of the ocean, though soothing, in the
regularity and monotony of its sluggish motion, sounded inexpressibly
mournful.

The gloom of the night, and the tragic scenes of the day, seemed to give
character to my dreams, for they were dark and hideous, and so terribly
vivid, that I several times awoke strangely agitated.

At one time I saw Luerson, with a countenance of supernatural malignity,
and the expression of a fiend, murdering poor Frazer. At another, our
boat seemed drawn by some irresistible, but unseen power, to the verge
of a yawning abyss, and began to descend between green-glancing walls of
water, to vast depths, where undescribed sea-monsters, never seen upon
the surface, glided about in an obscurity that increased their
hideousness. Suddenly the feeble light that streamed down into the gulf
through the green translucent sea, seemed to be cut off; the liquid
walls closed above our heads; and we were whirled away, with the sound
of rushing waters, and in utter darkness.

All this was vague and confused, and consisted of the usual "stuff that
dreams are made of." What followed, was wonderfully vivid and real:
every thing was as distinct as a picture, and it has left an indelible
impression upon my mind; there was something about it far more awful
than all the half-defined shapes and images of terror that preceded it.

I seemed to be all alone, in our little boat, in the midst of the sea.
It was night--and what a night! not a breath of wind rippled the glassy