enforcing these observations, and rendering me anxious to turn them
to account, and this was that, at every revolution, we passed
something like a barrel, or else the yard or the mast of a vessel,
while many of these things, which had been on our level when I first
opened my eyes upon the wonders of the whirlpool, were now high up
above us, and seemed to have moved but little from their original
station.

"I no longer hesitated what to do. I resolved to lash myself
securely to the water cask upon which I now held, to cut it loose
from the counter, and to throw myself with it into the water. I
attracted my brother's attention by signs, pointed to the floating
barrels that came near us, and did everything in my power to make him
understand what I was about to do. I thought at length that he
comprehended my design - but, whether this was the case or not, he
shook his head despairingly, and refused to move from his station by
the ring-bolt. It was impossible to reach him; the emergency admitted
of no delay; and so, with a bitter struggle, I resigned him to his
fate, fastened myself to the cask by means of the lashings which
secured it to the counter, and precipitated myself with it into the
sea, without another moment's hesitation.

"The result was precisely what I had hoped it might be. As it is
myself who now tell you this tale - as you see that I _did_ escape -
and as you are already in possession of the mode in which this escape
was effected, and must therefore anticipate all that I have farther
to say - I will bring my story quickly to conclusion. It might have
been an hour, or thereabout, after my quitting the smack, when,
having descended to a vast distance beneath me, it made three or four
wild gyrations in rapid succession, and, bearing my loved brother