He returned after a short absence, lighted the wick, and turned it down that it might burn dimly, then screwed it into the globe. I felt deeply grateful, and took his hand and held it whilst I thanked him. He left me, and putting on mate Hénin’s cloak to keep me warm, I got into my miserable little sleeping shelf and lay down, grateful for, and feeling even soothed by, being able to see. CHAPTER VI A TERRIBLE NIGHT I may have slept for an hour or two; but for the light of the lamp, I believe, I should not have closed my eyes in rest, so unendurable would my spirits have found the heavy burthen of the darkness of the night. I opened my eyes. The lamp burned dimly. The vessel was rolling somewhat briskly, and I seemed to hear a louder noise of wind than I had noticed before falling asleep. The creaking throughout the cabin was ceaseless and distracting. The rudder jarred heavily upon its hinges, and every time a billow smote it I felt a shock as though the brig had struck on a rock. On a sudden I heard a cry. It came faint and weak to my ears through the deck and through the door; but I heard it, and I caught the note of horror in it, and never shall I forget that cry! Whenever I recall it I think of the wailing scream of some strange wild tropic beast, wounded to the death and faltering to the edge of a river, and there sending its death cry into the quiet Indian night. The sound was re-echoed over my head, followed by a hasty rush of feet. A few moments later there was a terrific blow. The concussion was as though the brig had blown up. I heard the rending and smashing and splintering noises of falling masts and of bulwarks crushed. The brig heeled over and over, and yet over; one might have supposed that some mighty hand had grasped her side and was slowly swaying and pressing her upside down. Fortunately for me the wild and inexpressible slope of the vessel to one side laid me against the wall to which my sleeping-shelf was fixed, and so I could not fall out. Had it been the other way about I must certainly have been flung from my bed, when, in all probability, I should have broken a limb if not my neck.