I had spent two nights in walking the deck, to the hissing of the waves in the dark, the moaning of the wind in the rigging, and the constant dashing of the sea which swept the decks: the waves rioted all around us. Tired with the shocks and jerks of the vessel, I went below early on the third night. The weather was terrible; my hammock creaked and rocked with the blows of the sea, which, breaking over the vessel, threatened to dislocate her very planks. Soon I heard men running from one end of the deck to the other, and coils of rope falling: I experienced the motion which one feels when a vessel is put about. The hatch of the steerage ladder was thrown open; a frightened voice called for the captain: that voice, in the middle of the night and the tempest, sounded tremendous. I listened; I thought I heard sailors discussing the lie of a coast. I tumbled out of my hammock; a sea drove in the quarter-deck, flooded the captain's room, knocked over and rolled pell-mell tables, mattresses, chests, furniture, and arms; I made my way on deck half-drowned. When I put my head out of the steerage, a splendid sight met my eyes. The ship had tried to put about; but, failing in this attempt she had become embayed under the stress of the wind. By the light of the moon, her horns broken by the clouds, from beneath which she emerged only to be hidden by them again, we discovered on either side of the ship, through a yellow fog, a coast bristling with rocks. The sea threw up waves like mountains in the channel in which we found ourselves engulfed: now they scattered into foam and spray; again they presented merely an oily and vitreous surface, mottled with black, coppery, or greenish stains, according to the colour of the bottom over which they roared. During two or three minutes, the moaning of the abyss and that of the wind would be confused; the next moment, one distinguished the ripple of the currents, the hissing on the reefs, the voice of the distant surge. From the hold of the ship issued sounds which made the hearts of the stoutest sailors beat faster. The stem of the vessel cut through the thick mass of waves with a hideous crash, and, at the helm, torrents of water flowed away eddying as from the mouth of a sluice. Amid all this uproar, nothing was so alarming as a certain dull, murmuring sound, like that of a vase filling. Lighted by a ship's lantern and held down by weights, harbour-books, charts, and log-books lay spread out upon a hen-coop. A gust of wind had put out the binnacle-lamp. Every one was at variance about the land. We had entered the Channel without noticing it; the vessel, staggering under each wave, was drifting between the islands of Guernsey and Alderney. Our shipwreck appeared inevitable, and the passengers put up their valuables to save them.