His sense of guilt at this moment was overpowering; hitherto (partly
occasioned by ignorance, and partly by depraved habits of life) a degree
of thoughtlessness had possessed him, which it is almost impossible to
conceive could reign in the breast of a being endued with reason. Now
indeed his eyes were open to his fate--to his earthly fate; a strange
foreboding came upon him; it was a species of instinctive horror; he
could not look beyond it. Whether there was a being who ruled the world,
or whether there was not, had never been the subject of his meditations;
yet a secret whisper intimated to him that death would not be the bound
of his hopes and his fears--of his joys and his sorrows.

He was conscious of the blackness of his crime, which indeed was of the
deepest dye, and that he had never till then experienced the arm of
vengeance. He shuddered as the violence of the tempest increased.

He had braved the seas--he had fought with the enemies of his country;
but never did fear paralyze the daring Cedric before. He fell senseless
on the deck entangled in the shattered cordage, whereby he was preserved
from being washed overboard by the mountain billows, which every moment
engulfed the vessel, threatening immediate destruction to all on board.

The murkiest cloud that ever hid the skies from the view of man, now
rode in universal blackness over the horror-stricken crew, which,
opening every pore, as though at once to overwhelm creation, poured
forth its contents like one vast sea descending to overflow another. The
winds gathered from every quarter with unparalleled fury. Thunders
rolled with that incessant clamour which pervades a field of earthly
battle; but artillery, whose dreadful note hath made the hardiest and
the boldest quake, utters with but feeble voice to that which that night
growled on the craggy shores of India. And lightnings fell, as when