if such thoughts did intrude, they were but for a moment; and again his mental energies, joined with his lion heart and bodily prowess, cast away all fear, and he reckoned the remotest possible chances of deliverance, applying the means, "'Courage and Hope both teaching him the practice.' "Up to this time, Winterton Light had served instead of a land-mark to direct his course; but the tide had now carried him out of sight of it, and in its stead 'a bright star stood over where' his hopes of safety rested. With his eyes steadfastly fixed upon it, he continued swimming on, calculating the time when the tide would turn. But his trials were not yet past. As if to prove the strength of human fortitude, the sky became suddenly overclouded, and 'darkness was upon the face of the deep.' He no longer knew his course, and he confessed, that for a moment he was afraid; yet he felt, that 'fear is but the betraying of the succors which reason offereth,' and that which roused _him_ to further exertion, would have sealed the fate of almost any other human being. A sudden short cracking peal of thunder burst in stunning loudness just over his head, and the forked and flashing lightning at brief intervals threw its vivid fires around him. This, too, in its turn passed away, and left the sea once more calm and unruffled: the moon (nearly full) again threw a more brilliant light upon the waters, which the storm had gone over without waking from their slumbers. His next effort was to free himself from his heavy laced boots, which greatly encumbered him, and in which he succeeded by the aid of his knife. He now saw Lowestoft's high Lighthouse, and could occasionally discern the tops of the cliffs beyond Garlestone on the Suffolk coast. The swell of the sea drove him over the Cross Sand Ridge, and he then got sight of a buoy, which, although it told him his exact position, 'took him rather aback,' as he had hoped he was nearer the shore. It proved to be the chequered buoy, St. Nicholas' Gate, off Yarmouth, and _opposite his own door_, but distant from the land _four miles_. And now again he held counsel with himself, and the energies of his mind seem almost superhuman; he had been five hours in the water, and here was something to hold on by; he could have even got upon the buoy, and some vessel _might come near_ to pick him up, and the question was, could he yet hold out four miles? 'But,' said he, 'I knew the night air would soon finish me, and had I stayed but a few minutes upon it, and then _altered_ my mind, how did I know that my limbs would again resume their office?' He found the tide was broke; it did not run so strong; so he abandoned the buoy, and steered for the land, towards which, with the wind from the eastward, he found he was now fast approaching. The last trial of his fortitude was now at hand, for which he was totally unprepared, and which he considered (having the superstition of a sailor) the most difficult of any he had to combat.