"On recovering, I found myself in the dark, and half in the water. Thirst—thirst, as if the flames of that hot place the parsons preach about were in my throat, and in my lower spirit-room, assailed me. I groped about for some time without being able to comprehend my circumstances, or where the deuce I was. By the motion and sounds I knew that I was on board some craft, and at sea; but how—for her strange position puzzled me. I groped about, half gasping, the while for air, and, as I felt with my hands the details of the woodwork around, gradually, but surely, a horrible conviction came over me. I was still in the cabin of the sloop, but its position was inverted; the upper deck was below me, and the lower deck above! I was in mirk darkness, and felt the water rising above my knees. There was a sucking, gurgling sound with every heave of the sea; but this could be easily accounted for by the air, which was confined in the hull of the cutter, and had no means of escape.
"I now understood the whole catastrophe!
"While I had been in a state of stupor, a breeze or squall, mayhap the same squall that foundered your ship, had arisen. Left to herself, the cutter's sails had been thrown aback, her main-boom had jibed; she had been capsized, and was now floating, keel upmost, in the sea; floating, I knew not where, with me imprisoned helplessly and dying of hunger, thirst, terror, and suffocation, (but I cannot add remorse,) in her dark, inverted, and waterlogged cabin!
"I felt the fishes, cold and slimy, darting about and touching me. What, if a shark, even of the smallest size, found its way up the companion hatch into my dreadful floating tomb! The idea nearly drove me mad. Amidst water which I dared not drink, I endured the most maddening thirst, and envied the dead body of my second victim, which, or shall I say whom, I supposed to be floating in the forehold.
"How long I had been in this wretched condition there were no means of determining, neither could I distinguish day from night. I searched about for the bottles that were left on the cabin table, resolving to drink myself into a state of stupefaction, from which I might never wake more; but sought in vain. I found the locker like everything else, inverted, and, of course, empty.
"My thirst was an overwhelming agony; moreover, I endured great cold; my limbs were cramped, and hideous faces, smeared with blood, winked their goggle eyes and grinned at me, amid the dense obscurity which was almost palpable.
"At times it seemed as if the capsized cutter sank deeper in the water; and on these occasions I dared neither move, breathe, or think; for though I had recklessly slain others, I was haunted by an awful dread of dying there.
"Once I thought that the jaws of a huge shark yawned beside me, and in a paroxysm of terror, I swooned, as they seemed to engulf me.
"On recovering, some time after, half-choked and half-drowned, I started up with a howl of despair, and beat madly against the cabin wall with my clenched hands, till they were covered with blood and bruises. Was I deceived, or was it reality? A sound outside seemed to reply.
"I heard a kind of grating noise without, and then the blows of some instrument—an axe or hammer—rang again and again like thunder in my excited ears.