But, alas! my hopes soon vanished: the voices became more faint, I felt that I was plunged under the floe to make room for the passage of the ship, and when I rose, the water which had filled the incision made by the saw, froze hard, and I was again closed in--perhaps for ever. I now became quite frantic with despair, I tore my clothes, and dashed my head against the corners of the cave, and tried to put an end to my hated existence. At last, I sank down exhausted with my own violent efforts, and continued sullen for several days. But there is a buoyant spirit in our composition which raises our heads above the waters of despair. Hope never deserts us, not even in an iceberg. She attends us and supports us to the last; and although we reject her kind offices in our fury, she still watches by us, ready to assist and console us, when we are inclined to hearken to her encouraging whispers. I once more listened to her suggestions, and for six months fed upon them, aided by occasional variations of the flesh of the sea-horse. It was now late in the summer, and the ice in which I was bound up had evidently melted away. One morning I was astonished by perceiving that the light of the sun seemed to change its position regularly every quarter of an hour. Had it done so occasionally during the day, and at no stated intervals, I should have imagined that the ice that I was enclosed in, altered its position with the winds and currents; but the regularity astonished me. I watched it, and I found that the same phenomenon occurred, but at shorter intervals, and it continued until the light shifted from side to side every minute. After some reflection, the horrid idea occurred to me that I must have been drifted to the coast of Norway, and was in the influence of the dreadful whirlpool, called the Maelstroom, and that, in a few minutes, I should be engulfed for ever; and, whilst I was thinking that such might be the case, the light revolved each fifteen seconds. "Then it is!" cried I in despair; and, as I uttered the words, it became quite dark, and I knew that I had sunk in the vortex, and all was over. It may appear strange to your highness, that after the first pang, occasioned by the prospect of perdition, had passed away, that so far from feeling a horror at my situation, I mocked and derided it. I could feel no more, and I waited the result with perfect indifference. From the marks in my nails, I afterwards found out that I was nearly six months in the interior of the earth. At last, one day I was nearly blinded by the powerful light that poured through my tenement, and I knew that I was once more floating on the water. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Allah kebir! God is most powerful!" exclaimed the pacha. "Holy Prophet, where was it that you came up again?" "In the harbour of Port-Royal in Jamaica. Your highness will hardly credit it, but on my honour it is true."