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our last--every mountainous billow hurried to overwhelm us. The swell
surpassed anything I had imagined possible, and that we were not
instantly buried is a miracle. My companion spoke of the lightness of
our cargo, and reminded me of the excellent qualities of our ship; but
I could not help feeling the utter hopelessness of hope itself, and
prepared myself gloomily for that death which I thought nothing could
defer beyond an hour, as, with every knot of way the ship made,
the swelling of the black stupendous seas became more dismally
appalling. At times we gasped for breath at an elevation beyond the
albatross--at times became dizzy with the velocity of our descent into
some watery hell, where the air grew stagnant, and no sound disturbed
the slumbers of the kraken.
We were at the bottom of one of these abysses, when a quick scream
from my companion broke fearfully upon the night. "See! see!" cried he,
shrieking in my ears, "Almighty God! see! see!" As he spoke, I became
aware of a dull, sullen glare of red light which streamed down the sides
of the vast chasm where we lay, and threw a fitful brilliancy upon our
deck. Casting my eyes upwards, I beheld a spectacle which froze the
current of my blood. At a terrific height directly above us, and upon
the very verge of the precipitous descent, hovered a gigantic ship of,
perhaps, four thousand tons. Although upreared upon the summit of a wave
more than a hundred times her own altitude, her apparent size exceeded
that of any ship of the line or East Indiaman in existence. Her huge
hull was of a deep dingy black, unrelieved by any of the customary
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