I04 THE CALL OF THE SEA 



heavens. The whid and the wild seas, now vastly 

 swollen, hidefatigably hunted us. I stood on deck 

 choking with fear ; I seemed to lose all power 

 upon my limbs ; my knees were as paper when she 

 plunged into the murderous valleys ; my heart 

 collapsed when some black mountain fell in ava- 

 lanche beside her counter, and the water, that was 

 more than spray, swept round my ankles like a 

 torrent. I was conscious of but one strong desire 

 — to bear myself decently in my terrors, and, what- 

 ever should happen to my life, preserve my char- 

 acter : as the captain said, we are a queer kind of 

 beasts. Breakfast time came, and I made shift to 

 swallow some hot tea. Then I must stagger below 

 to take the time, reading the chronometer with 

 dizzy eyes, and marvelling the while what value 

 there could be in observations taken in a ship 

 launched (as ours then was) like a missile among 

 flying seas. The forenoon dragged on in a grind- 

 ing monotony of peril ; every spoke of the wheel a 

 rash but an obliged experiment — rash as a forlorn 

 hope, needful as the leap that lands a fireman 

 from a burning staircase. Noon was made ; the 

 captain dined on his day's work, and I on watch- 

 ing him ; and our place was entered on the chart 

 with a meticulous precision which seemed to me 

 half pitiful and half absurd, since the next eye to 

 see that sheet of paper might be the eye of an 

 exploring fish. One o'clock came, then two ; the 



