Now the waves of the broad ocean began to rise, the vessels were tossed about, the cordage rattled, and the wind howled fearfully through the rigging. It lightened, then again was dark as night. It thundered and a tempest of rain beat upon the tossing vessels. The storm burst upon them in all its fury. The lightning flashed, the thunders crashed, the waves rushed along, the winds howled, and the reeling vessels were now hurled high in air by the mighty billows and now plunged into deep abysses. The sailors were overcome with fear. Some of them fell upon their knees and prayed with uplifted hands that their lives might be spared. Others stood or lay prostrate, paralyzed with fright, and appeared more dead than alive; still others sought shelter in superstitions and promised if Heaven would save them they would make a barefooted pilgrimage to some church dedicated to the Virgin in the first Christian country they reached. They were really in a desperate plight. They swung as it were between death and life and every mountainous wave which lifted them upon its mighty crest and hurled them down again into the watery abyss seemed to them the messenger of their doom. In vain Columbus sought to employ every means of safety suggested by his skill and experience; in vain he tried to encourage them and to rouse them to activity. They were soulless bodies capable of no effort while the storm raged on with irresistible fury. At last, when he was convinced that human help was impossible, he betook himself with sorrowing heart to his cabin to provide in some way that his great discoveries should not be lost to the world. Nothing troubled him so much as the thought that the important intelligence he was taking to Europe might be lost. It pierced his great heart like a sharp two-edged sword and moved him to think not so much of himself and his own safety as of some means to avert what in his estimation was the greatest of calamities. With death staring him in the face this unterrified man was still capable of thinking clearly and quietly, of formulating concise decisions, and putting them into effect. Columbus took a parchment, inscribed upon it an account of his discoveries, wrapped it in oilcloth and sealed it with wax. This packet he placed in a well protected cask and threw it into the ocean, hoping it would be washed ashore where some one was living who would open it and thus become acquainted with his discoveries. Some time after this he fastened a second cask with a similar package to the stern of his vessel so that it should go with him if the vessel went down with him and his people.