“I was very much interested in the chemical process of turning the salt water into fresh, which was going on with great rapidity while I was there. Perhaps your highness would like me to explain it, as it will not occupy your attention more than an hour.”
“No, no, skip that, Huckaback, and go on.”
But as soon as I had gratified my curiosity, I began to be alarmed at my situation, not so much on account of the means of supporting existence, for there was more than sufficient.
“More than sufficient! Why what could you have to eat?”
Plenty of fresh fish, your highness, which had been taken up in the column of water at the same time I was, and the fresh water already lay in little pools around me. But the cold was dreadful, and I felt that I could not support it many hours longer, and how to get down again was a problem which I could not solve.
It was however soon solved for me, for the cloud having completed its chemical labours, descended as rapidly as it had risen, and joined many others, that were engaged in sharp conflict. As I beheld them darting against each other, and discharging the electric fluid in the violence of their collision, I was filled with trepidation and dismay, lest, meeting an adversary, I should be hurled into the abyss below, or be withered by the artillery of heaven. But I was fortunate enough to escape. The cloud which bore me descended to within a hundred yards of the earth, and then was hurried along by the wind with such velocity and noise, that I perceived we were assisting at a hurricane.
As we neared the earth, the cloud, unable to resist the force of its attraction, was compelled to deliver up its burthen, and down I fell, with such torrents of water, that it reminded me of the deluge. The tornado was now in all its strength. The wind roared and shrieked in its wild fury, and such was its force that I fell in an acute angle.