I had stretched up my hand to ascertain if the sack was quite empty. It appeared so. Why, then, should I not pull it through the aperture, and get it out of the way? No reason why I should not; and I at once dragged it down, and flung it behind me.
I then raised my head through the end of the box into the space where the sack had lain.
Merciful heavens! What did I behold? Light! light! light!
Chapter Sixty Three.
Light and Life.
Yes, my eyes were once more cheered with heavenly light, producing within my heart a joy sudden and complete. I could not describe the happiness I felt. Every fear at once forsook me. I had no longer the slightest apprehension. I was saved!
The light I saw was but a very slender beam—a mere ray—that appeared to penetrate through a crack between two planks. It was above me, not vertically above me, but rather in a diagonal line, and apparently about eight or ten feet distant.
I knew it could not be through the deck that the light came. There are no open spaces between the planks of a ship’s deck. It must be through the hatchway; and very likely the crack I saw was through the boarding of the hatch, at a place where the tarpaulin might be off or torn.