After supper, Youwarkee looking very earnestly at me, with tears just glittering in her eyes, broke out in these words--"What should you have thought, Peter, to have seen me come sailing, drowned, through the cavern, tied to one of your chests?"--"Heaven forbid such a thought, my charmer!" says I. "But as you know I must have been rendered the most miserable of all living creatures by such a sight, or anything else that would deprive me of you, pray tell me how you could possibly have such a thought in your head?"--She saw she had raised my concern, and was very sorry for what she had said. "Nothing, nothing," says she, "my dear! it was only a fancy just come into my head."--"My dear Youwee," says I, "you must let me know what you mean: I am in great pain till you explain yourself; for I am sure there is something more in what you say than fancy; therefore, pray, if you love me, keep me on the rack no longer."--"Ah, Peter!" says she, "there was but a span between me and death not many days ago; and when I saw the line of the last chest we took up just now, it gave so much horror I could scarce keep upon my feet."--"My dear Youwee, proceed," says I; "for I cannot bear my torment till I have heard the worst."--"Why, Peter," says she, "now the danger is over, I shall tell you my escape with as much pleasure as I guess you will take in hearing of it. You must know, my life," says she, "that having cast that chest into the sea, as I was tugging it along by that very line, it being one of the heaviest, and moving but slowly, I twisted the string several times round my hand, one fold upon another, the easier to tow it; when, drawing it rather too quick into the eddy, it pulled so hard against me, towards the gulf, and so quick, that I could in no way loosen or disengage the cord from my fingers, but was dragged thereby to the very rock, against which the chest struck violently. My last thought, as I supposed it, was of you, my dear" (on which she clasped me round the neck, in sense of her past agony); "when taking myself for lost, I forbore further resistance; at which instant the line, slackening by the rebound of the chest, fell from my hand of itself, and the chest returning to the rock, went down the current. I took a turn or two round on my graundee to recollect my past danger, and went back to the ship, fully resolved to avoid the like snare for the future. Indeed I did not easily recover my spirits, and was so terrified with the thought, that I had half a mind to have left the two remaining chests behind me; but as danger overcome gives fresh resolution, I again set to work, and discharged them also down the gulf, as I hope you will see in good time."