Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 4, 2025
I was, accordingly, assisted on shore; and, having been put to bed, slept for several hours so soundly that I do not think a single image of what I had seen and heard during that dismal scene occurred to my fancy; but, when in the act of wakening, a confused influx of ideas, all derived from the source of my sufferings, rushed into my mind, and for a few minutes I conceived that I was still in the bell, that I heard the sound of the air tubes, saw Jenkins fall, the corpse lying beside me, Vanderhoek hanging by my grasp of his hair, and all the minutiæ of horrors that then encompassed me; a commotion which comes over me often yet, like a species of monomania, when I will start up, and cling to the bedposts, and scream for terror.
He held the large hammer in his hand with which he had given the stroke. He told me that he wanted more air, and that this was the signal to the workers of the air-pump. His eye was fixed on the air holes, with which the pipes communicated. I thought he appeared alarmed; he exchanged a look with Vanderhoek, and the eye of the latter was soon also fixed on the same spot.
"Ja," replied Vanderhoek; "see, there is von gut sign. The meer-weeds are drifting to the east; and see, there is von piece of the wreck moving from the west."
I could perceive that Vanderhoek was also labouring for breath; Jenkins, relinquishing his efforts at the air tube mouths, turned, looked wildly at his neighbour, and, staggering down upon the bench, struggled to get hold of the hammer, which, when he grasped it tremblingly, fell out of his hands down into the bottom of the sea. "In the name of God! what is the meaning of all this, Jenkins?"
After looking thus for a few moments, he started suddenly, then reaching up his hand, seized wildly another flask that hung near him, drained it to the bottom, and flung away the empty vessel. Some time passed before I felt any further motion upwards; and the large quantity of strong liquor that Vanderhoek had thrown into his still weak body, operated upon him with a quickness that surprised me.
Vanderhoek, who had now recovered his consciousness, uttered a loud cry as he saw his companion sink. The continued fresh air seemed to strengthen him far more rapidly than it did me, and I perceived that he now made violent struggles to lay hold of the mattock.
Through my glazed eye I saw, lying in a hollow of the broken raft, a white figure probably that seen by Vanderhoek when he fell into the sea. By and by, it became more visible as the waters rose, and I saw that it was the body of a female who had perished in the vessel. The image of the apparition has haunted me to this hour, and shall do till I die.
But I was soon roused from my dark reverie: a louder crash than I had yet heard sounded over the bell, and produced such an effect upon the excited mind of Vanderhoek, that he roused his body suddenly, and struck a fierce blow at me with the iron instrument he still held in his hand. He had over-calculated his partially-recovered strength, and tumbled into the sea alongside of the corpse.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking