uncanny should hide beneath that lovely mirror; and yet when some
floating wisp of reeds suddenly coiled itself around my neck, or some
unknown thing, drifting deeper, coldly touched my foot, it gave that
undefinable sense of shudder which every swimmer knows, and which
especially appeals to the imagination by night. Sometimes a slight sip
of brackish water would enter my lips,--for I naturally tried to swim as
low as possible,--and then would follow a slight gasping and contest
against choking, such as seemed to me a perfect convulsion; for I
suppose the tendency to choke and sneeze is always enhanced by the
circumstance that one's life may depend on keeping still, just as
yawning becomes irresistible where to yawn would be social ruin, and
just as one is sure to sleep in church, if one sits in a conspicuous
pew. At other times, some unguarded motion would create a splashing
which seemed, in the tension of my senses, to be loud enough to be heard
at Richmond, although it really mattered not, since there are fishes in
those rivers which make as much noise on special occasions as if they
were misguided young whales.

As I drew near the opposite shore, the dark causeway projected more and
more distinctly, to my fancy at least, and I swam more softly still,
utterly uncertain as to how far, in the stillness of air and water, my
phosphorescent course could be traced by eye or ear. A slight ripple
would have saved me from observation, I was more than ever sure, and I
would have whistled for a fair wind as eagerly as any sailor, but that
my breath was worth more than anything it was likely to bring. The water
became smoother and smoother, and nothing broke the dim surface except a
few clomps of rushes and my unfortunate head. The outside of this member
gradually assumed to its inside a gigantic magnitude; it had always
annoyed me at the hatter's from a merely animal bigness, with no
commensurate contents to show for it, and now I detested it more than