The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1860-01-19

with the strength of the storm how the top
sails burst with lannon's roar, and whipped
themselves to ribbons; how the taut ropes
snapped asunder, and the loosened spars came
thunderOus down to the deck; how the masts
were strained and sprung, and the ship leaned
till the gunwale dipped ere she righted how
the storm ragged 6ercer ever, and the thunders
clattered louder! Yet he turned in his BERTH
and slept again, for rest was more to him than
all else, and, without it, what mattered the
deep? Twas as good place as any-so-he
In his sleep he dreamt he slept again-this
prisoner of the cell, this spelLmastered captive
of the Opium fend, this unhappy and van
pushed Beale Lloyd, of IL Raiazzo Cieco
And, in his sleep-dreaming that he slept,
and slept well, after that ftful fever" from
which he had hed--he also dreamt that he
awaked out of his sleep, and, staring at the
darkness, remembered where he was. And,
IN his dream,) the long storm had lulled, and
the ship rose and sunk slowly over the enor-
nous swell, which, huge and rolling, was not
rough, he knew, nor foamy, but like the round
shoulders of often ploughed hills, broad, calm,
majestic, and covered with bubbles, token of
the churning torture from which it had Just freed
ITSELF The wind howled no longer through the
cordage, nor did they hurry to and fro on deck;
but there were busy sounds there--the noise of
the rapid hammer, the steady clinkclank of
the pumps, and the pulsing gush of water to
wards the scuppers. So, then, there was a
leak, and damages to repair.
But these sounds do not attract him much
There Is another sound controls his ear, sends
shiver to his very bones, and makes his hair
to rise in awful horror. What is it? Not so
much sound as an agglomeration of sounds,
which, tost together, so to speaker, rather,
aorftding, interlocked, yet struggling with each
other, like knot of angry serpents, who fight
tor food In some too-narrow den--was yet COM
posed of elements possessing each enough in
dividuality to enable him to distinguish them
apart, and decide upon the place of every voice
in that internal chorus-that wild, perpetually
lucrative Fugue of horrors. The voices of men,
the voices of women, the voices of children
nevertheless, the voices of wild beasts only, and
of wild beasts desperate. OF wild beasts, for,
say you are starving, or being murdered, Or
drowning, or in the first panic of the saupe qui
peut of battle rout-then, in any of these
cases, at the very moment when things climax,
when the force of muscle, the strain of a
nerve, may decide how it is to be with YOU; in
that single moment, obeying instinct alone, you
become, necessarily, wild beast. These were
the voices he heard then, in his dream-voices
OF wild beasts, voices of men, women, children,
voices IN estremis, all. Sounds, moreover,
amplifcatory of these voices, supplementary to
them, explanatory of them. Right underneath
him, as he lay there in the berth, it was all
going on; and he knew SO well what those
sounds were, that be could shudderingly tell all
the minutiae of them. Now, it was a struggle
for life, mind you) between two-men or
beasts, shall we say? Beasts, then, for hu-
manity's sake-the irm-planted feet, shutting
little; the breath, drawn through set teeth,
hissingly-the fall, and all was over or, (rdri-
ation after the cench, the single blow, fol
lowed by scream, jerked out, or by a crash
bones broke-or Mird-(the last most fatal.l
Or, (Oariation 2,) some initial play, followed by
a gasp, gurgle. That meant, hand on throat
Sometimes, (uariation 81 there would be
breakaway, and the sharp clink of iron letters
over head-mostly, no second blow-tbat
crash, indeed, told it was done well. These
things were quickly over, for here they seemed
ell men, stout and desperatc--men who fought,
1t seemed, to get near to one spot, and, crowd
ing there, pulled one another down, killed and
trampled on them-themselves in turn being
pulled down, killed, and trampled under foot,
by others, stronger and more desperate than
they. There was, too, another and constant
sound that singularly shocked him-the sound
OF naked hands and naked feet, in perpetual yet
uneasy and ever.changing contact with naked
flesh; you have heard something family like
it, as the peach kernel is like Prussic acid
when gang of boys, out swimming, meet in
throng, and, clutching, grasping, splashng,
strive to duck" one another. But the nearest
sound to 1t is this When, in the South Seas, a
whale is killed, and brought longside, the
blanket-like "blubber," which saves him from
the cold, and makes men hunt him, has to be cut
off, since his whole huge body cannot be brought
on deck. 10 do this, man is swung over,
with belt about him, aud rope to that belt,
and, armed with razor-keen sort of spade he
mounts upon the whales sleek SIDE cuts
through a square with his spade, and fixes a
hook to it, by means of which, and the strength
OF the crew at the capstan, the piece is torn
away and taken on board. Meantime, the
sharks are busy round the carcase, looping"
huge bits from the fat sides, and being contin-
ually fought by the holder of the spade. Now,
the sound of the mans naked feet as he con-
tinually slipped about upon the whales sleek
back, and continually recovered himself and
continually sprang hither and thither, to do
battle to the sharks; and the swapping of these
sharks teeth, and the champing of their vora-
cious jaws, and the slippery Tapping of their
tails against each other, aud against the car
case, as they glided up and down = these
sounds, taken together, most resembled this
shocking sound heard in Beale Lloyd's dream,
the sound of naked feet and hands, clasping.
clutching, treading on, and slipping over, naked
bodies. l think it would shock any one to take
it to his ears, and follow up the associations
which sprang out of it.
TO BE Continued