I thought of nothing else until my
task was completed. I strode carelessly over the bodies of my
companions, the sails were blown from the yards, the yards themselves
were snapped asunder, the topmasts fell over the sides, the vessel flew
before the boiling surge; but I heeded not--I filled the casks with
water. When I had finished my labours, a reaction took place, and I
recollected the loss which I had sustained. I descended to the cabin.
There she lay in all her beauty. I kissed the cold cheek, I wrapped up
the adored image, carried it on deck, and launched it into the wave;
and, as it disappeared under the raging billows, I felt as if my heart,
in its struggles to escape, had burst the strings which confined it in
my bosom, and had leapt into the angry flood to join her. Exhausted with
my feelings, I fell down in a swoon; how long I remained I cannot
exactly say, but it was nearly dark when I lost my recollection, and
broad daylight when I recovered. The vessel was still flying before the
gale, which now roared in its resistless fury; the tattered fragments of
the sails were blown out before the lower yards like so many streamers
and pennants, and the wrecks of the topmasts were still towing alongside
through the foaming surge. The indurated bodies of my companions were
lying about the decks, washed by the water which poured into the vessel,
as she rolled deeply from one side to the other, presenting her gunwales
as if courting the admittance of the wave.
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