searching blast crept round his fat sides, and made him shiver.  Gust succeeded gust, and, at last, the corporal’s teeth chattered with the cold:  he raised his feet out of the water at the bottom of the boat, for his feet were like ice, but in so doing, the weight of his body being above the centre of gravity, the boat careened over, and with a “Mein Gott!” he hastily replaced them in the cold water.  And now a shower of rain and sleet came down upon the unprotected body of the corporal, which added to his misery, to his fear, and to his despair.

“Where am I?” muttered he; “what will become of me?  Ah, mein Gott! twenty tousand tyfels—­what had I to do in a boat—­I, Corporal Van Spitter?” and then he was again silent for nearly half an hour.  The wind shifted to the northward, and the rain cleared up, but it was only to make the corporal suffer more, for the freezing blast poured upon his wet clothes, and he felt chilled to the very centre of his vitals.  His whole body trembled convulsively, he was frozen to the thwart, yet there was no appearance of daylight coming, and the corporal now abandoned himself to utter hopelessness and desperation, and commenced praying.  He attempted the Lord’s Prayer in Dutch, but could get no further than “art in heaven,” for the rest, from disuse, had quite escaped the corporal’s memory.  He tried to recollect something else, but was equally unsuccessful; at last, he made up a sad mixture of swearing and praying.

“Mein Gott—­a hundred tousand tyfels—­gut Gott—­twenty hundred tousand tyfels!  Ah, Gott of mercy—­million of tyfels! holy Gott Jesus! twenty millions of tyfels—­Gott for dam, I die of cold!” Such were the ejaculations of the corporal, allowing about ten minutes to intervene between each, during which the wind blew more freshly, the waves rose, and the boat was whirled away.

But the corporal’s miseries were to be prolonged; the flood-time of water was now spent, and the ebb commenced flowing against the wind and sea.  This created what is called boiling water, that is, a contest between the wind forcing the waves one way, and the tide checking them the other, which makes the waves to lose their run, and they rise, and dance, and bubble into points.  The consequence was, that the boat, as she was borne down by the tide against them, shipped a sea every moment, which the wind threw against the carcass of the corporal, who was now quite exhausted with more than four hours’ exposure to a wintry night, the temperature being nearly down to zero.  All the corporal’s stoicism was gone; he talked wildly, crouched and gibbered in his fear, when he was suddenly roused by a heavy shock.  He raised his head, which had sunk upon his chest, and beheld something close to him, and to the gunnel of the boat.  It was a thin, tall figure, holding out his two arms at right angles, and apparently stooping over him.  It was just in the position that Smallbones lay on the forecastle of the cutter on that day morning,