XL] WILSON ON THE MALSTROM. 207 



in the vessel's course that we were proceeding towards 

 the dreadful locality, he gave himself up to despair, and lay 

 tossing in his hammock in sleepless anxiety. At last the 

 load of his forebodings was greater than he could bear ; he 

 gets up, steals into the Doctor's cabin, wakes him up, and 

 standing over him — as the messenger of ill tidings cnce 

 stood over Priam — whispers, " Sir/" " What is it? ' says 

 Fitz, thinking, perhaps, some one was ill. " Do you know 

 where we are going?" "Why, to Throndhjem," answered 

 Fitz. "We were going to Throndhjem," rejoins Wilson, 

 "but we ain't now — the vessel's course was altered two hours 

 ago. Oh, Sir! we are going to Whirlpool — to Whirl-rl-pooo-l 7 

 Sir ! " in a quaver of consternation, — and so glides back to 

 bed like a phantom, leaving the Doctor utterly unable to 

 divine the occasion of his visit. 



The whole of the next day the gale continued. We had 

 now sailed back into night ; it became therefore a question 

 how far it would be advisable to carry on during the ensuing 

 hours of darkness, considering how uncertain we were as to 

 our real position. As I think I have already described to 

 you, the west coast of Norway is very dangerous ; a con 

 tinuous sheet of sunken rocks lies out along its entire edge 

 for eight or ten miles to sea. There are no lighthouses to 

 warn the mariner off; and if we were wrong in our reckon- 

 ing, as we might very well be, it was possible we might 

 stumble on the land sooner than we expected. I knew the 

 proper course would be to lie to quietly until we could take 

 an observation ; but time was so valuable, and I was so 

 fearful you would be getting anxious. The night was pretty 

 clear. High mountains, such as we were expecting to 

 make, would be seen, even at night, several miles off. Ac- 

 cording to our log we were still 150 miles off the land, and, 

 however inaccurate our calculation might be, the error 

 could not be of such magnitude as that amounted to. To 

 throw away so fair a wind seemed such a pity, especially as 

 it might be days before the sun appeared ; we had already 

 been at sea about a fortnight without a sight of him, and his 



