In the midst of this ghastly merriment, while they were dancing furiously, hand in hand, over the slippery deck, a tremendous sea took us right amidship. I saw it coming on, dark, heaving, and terrible—a roaring mountain of liquid blackness—and embraced the windlass with all the strength with which despair and love of life endued me. In irresistible fury, the stupendous wave rolled its mighty volume over the wreck: when it passed away I was _alone_. It had swept, into the boiling sea, every one of them. A cry came feebly on the bellowing wind, and all was over: I heard only the hiss of the dashing spray, and the plunging of the wreck, as alternately it rose on the crest of a wave, and thundered down into the yawning ocean. I had bound myself securely to the windlass with my sash, and my principal fear was that the water-logged hull might sink; for in such a sea, and when so far from land, swimming would be unavailing. O, the multiplied horrors of that dismal night! How gladly, amid that intense ocean solitude, I would have hailed the sound of a human voice—a glimpse of the distant shore—a gleam from a lonely star. Strange visions of home and happiness—of sunny fields and green moving woods—floated before me. Then came other scenes and sounds: the boom of cannon and the roll of the drums. Now I was leading on my stormers at Scylla; anon I was with Bianca—I heard her soft low voice, her sweet Italian tone, and her gentle hand clasped mine— * * * * *CHAPTER XIX.* *WHO IS HE?* From a state of dreamy apathy—a delirium between sleeping and waking: the very fever of desperation—the increased roar of ocean aroused me. Through the sullen gloom I discerned, a-head, a mighty barrier of rocks, against which the sea was running with incredible fury, casting the foam of its breakers to the clouds, and hurrying the wreck onwards to total destruction. I heard my heart beat: the critical moment was come, for safety or destruction. I drew off my boots, buttoned up the despatches in the breast of my coat, and casting another glance at that frowning, sable, and appalling barrier of rock, felt my heart sink within me: yet that heart had never quailed in the breach, or on the battle-field.