the clouds withered and darkened above. The sea began to swell and moan
and look up, like the soul of a man whose joy is going down in darkness;
and a horror came over the heart of the sleeper, and in his dream he
lifted up his head, meaning to rise and hasten to his home. But, behold,
the shore was far away, and the great castle-cliff had sunk to a low
ridge! With a cry, he sank back on the bosom of the careless sea.

"The boat began to rise and fall on the waking waves. Then a great blast
of wind laid hold of it, and whirled it about. Once more he looked up, and
saw that the tops of the waves were torn away, and that 'the white water
was coming out of the black.' Higher and higher rose the billows; louder
and louder roared the wind across their jagged furrows, tearing awful
descants from their bursting chords, and tossing the little boat like a
leaf in the lone desert of storms; now holding it perched on the very
crest of a wave, in the mad eye of the tempest, while the chaotic waters
danced, raving about, in hopeless confusion; now letting it sink in the
hollow of the waves, and lifting above it cold glittering walls of water,
that becalmed it as in a sheltered vale, while the hurricane roaring
above, flung arches of writhing waters across from billow to billow
overhead, and threatened to close, as in a transparent tomb, boat and boy.
At length, when the boat rose once more, unwilling, to the awful ridge,
jagged and white, a yet fiercer blast tore it from the top of the wave.
The dreamer found himself choking in the waters, and soon lost all
consciousness of the buffeting waves or the shrieking winds.

"When the dreamer again awoke, he felt that he was carried along through
the storm above the waves; for they reached him only in bursts of spray,
though the wind raged around him more fiercely than ever. He opened his
eyes and looked downwards. Beneath him seethed and boiled the tumultuous
billows, their wreathy tops torn from them, and shot, in long vanishing