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was perhaps the principle of my concealment. I was unwilling to trust
myself with a race of people who had offered, to the cursory glance I
had taken, so many points of vague novelty, doubt, and apprehension. I
therefore thought proper to contrive a hiding-place in the hold. This I
did by removing a small portion of the shifting-boards, in such a manner
as to afford me a convenient retreat between the huge timbers of the
ship.
I had scarcely completed my work, when a footstep in the hold forced me
to make use of it. A man passed by my place of concealment with a feeble
and unsteady gait. I could not see his face, but had an opportunity
of observing his general appearance. There was about it an evidence of
great age and infirmity. His knees tottered beneath a load of years, and
his entire frame quivered under the burthen. He muttered to himself,
in a low broken tone, some words of a language which I could not
understand, and groped in a corner among a pile of singular-looking
instruments, and decayed charts of navigation. His manner was a wild
mixture of the peevishness of second childhood, and the solemn dignity
of a God. He at length went on deck, and I saw him no more.
*
* * * *
A feeling, for which I have no name, has taken possession of my soul
-a sensation which will admit of no analysis, to which the lessons of
bygone times are inadequate, and for which I fear futurity itself
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