Here his thoughts were abruptly cut short. A combing wave struck the vessel. She lurched with violence, and a shower of foam flew over her side. Vinal lost his balance. His feet slipped from under him. He fell, and slid quickly across the wet and tossing deck. Instinctively he braced his feet to stop himself against the bulwark on the lee side. But at the point where they touched it was the large port before mentioned. Though closed to all appearance, the bolt was still unfastened. It flew open at his touch. Vinal clutched to save himself. His fingers slipped on the wet timbers, and with a cry of horror, he was shot into the bubbling surges. There was a blinding in his eyes, a ringing in his ears; then, for an instant, he saw the light, and the black hulk of the vessel fled past like a shadow. Then a wave swept over him: all was darkness and convulsion, and a maddened sense of being flung high aloft, as the wave rolled him towards its crest like a drift sea weed. Here again light broke upon him; and flying above the merciless chaos, he saw something like the white wing of a huge bird. It was the reefed main-topsail of the receding vessel. He shrieked wildly. A torrent of brine dashed back the cry, and foaming over his head, plunged him down into darkness again. Again he rose, gasping and half senseless; and again the ravenous breakers beat him down. A moment of struggle and of agony; then a long nightmare of dreamy horror, while, slowly settling downward, he sank below the turmoil of the storm; slowly and more slowly still, till the denser water sustained his weight. Then with limbs outstretched, he hovered in mid ocean, lonely, void, and vast, like a hawk poised in mid-air, while his felon spirit, bubbling to the surface, winged its dreary flight through the whistling storm. CHAPTER LXXII. Adventure and endurance and emprise Exalted his mind's faculties, and strung His body's sinews.--_Bryant_. On a rock, at the end of the promontory which forms the harbor of Beyrout, stood Vassall Morton; and at his side his friend Buckland, whom he had met in New York just after his return from Austria. They had encountered again in the East Indies, and had made together a long and varied journey, not without hardship and danger, among the tribes of Upper India and Central Asia. Buckland was greatly changed. His look and bearing betokened recovered health and spirit; while his companion, in the fulness of masculine vigor, was swarthy as an Arab with the long burning of the Eastern sun. "Our travels are over, Buckland. We have nothing to do, now, but to get on board ship, and lie still for a few weeks, and we shall be at home again. I hardly know why it is that I wish so much to shorten the space, unless from a cat-like propensity to haunt old places." "And to see your friends again."