He floated on now for hours, motionless and filled with despair, listening to the dash of the waves, which were the only sounds that came to his ears. And so it came to pass, in process of time, that by incessant attention to these monotonous sounds, they ceased to be altogether monotonous, but seemed to assume various cadences and intonations. His sharpened ears learned at last to distinguish between the dash of large waves and the plash of small ones, the sighing of the wind, the pressure of the waters against the boat's bows, and the ripple of eddies under its stern. Worn out by excitement and fatigue, he lay motionless, listening to sounds like these, and taking in them a mournful interest, when suddenly, in the midst of them, his ears caught a different cadence. It was a long, measured sound, not an unfamiliar one, but one which he had often heard--the gathering sound which breaks out, rising and accumulating upon the ear, as the long line of surf falls upon some rocky shore. He knew at once what this was, and understood by it that he was near some shore; but what shore it might be he could not know. The sound came up from his right, and therefore might be the New Brunswick coast, if the boat had preserved its proper position. But the position of the boat had been constantly changing as she drifted along, so that it was impossible to tell whether he was drifting stern foremost or bow foremost. The water moved as the boat moved, and there was no means by which to judge. He listened to the surf, therefore, but made no attempt to draw nearer to it. He now knew perfectly well that with his present resources no efforts of his could avail anything, and that his only course would be to wait. Besides, this shore, whatever it was, must be very different, he thought, from the banks of the Petitcodiac. It was, as he thought, an iron-bound shore. And the surf which he heard broke in thunder a mile away, at the foot of giant precipices, which could only offer death to the hapless wretch who might be thrown among them. He lay, therefore, inactive, listening to this rolling surf for hours. At first it grew gradually louder, as though he was approaching it; but afterwards it grew fainter quite as gradually, until at length it could no longer be heard.