* * * * *

“Very true,” replied the pacha, “but go on.”

I was very much interested in the chemical process of turning the salt water into fresh, which was going on with great rapidity while I was there.  Perhaps your highness would like me to explain it, as it will not occupy your attention more than an hour.

“No, no, skip that, Huckaback, and go on.”

* * * * *

But as soon as I had gratified my curiosity, I began to be alarmed at my situation, not so much on account of the means of supporting existence, for there was more than sufficient.

* * * * *

“More that sufficient!  Why, what could you have to eat?”

* * * * *

Plenty of fresh fish, your highness, which had been taken up in the column of water at the same time I was, and the fresh water already lay in little pools around me.  But the cold was dreadful, and I felt that I could not support it many hours longer, and how to get down again was a problem which I could not solve.

It was however soon solved for me, for the cloud having completed its chemical labours, descended as rapidly as it had risen, and joined many others, that were engaged in sharp conflict.  As I beheld them darting against each other, and discharging the electric fluid in the violence of their collision, I was filled with trepidation and dismay, lest, meeting an adversary, I should be hurled into the abyss below, or be withered by the artillery of heaven.  But I was fortunate enough to escape.  The cloud which bore me descended to within a hundred yards of the earth, and then was hurried along by the wind with such velocity and noise, that I perceived we were assisting at a hurricane.

As we neared the earth, the cloud, unable to resist the force of its attraction, was compelled to deliver up its burthen, and down I fell, with such torrents of water, that it reminded me of the deluge.  The tornado was now in all its strength.  The wind roared and shrieked in its wild fury, and such was its force that I fell in an acute angle.

* * * * *

“What did you fall in?” interrupted the pacha.  “I don’t know what that is.”

“I fell in a slanting direction, your highness, describing the hypotenuse between the base and perpendicular, created by the force of the wind, and the attraction of gravitation.”

“Holy prophet! who can understand such stuff?  Speak plain, do you laugh at our beards?”

“Min Allah!  God forbid!  Your servant would indeed eat dirt,” replied Huckaback.

* * * * *

I meant to imply, that so powerful was the wind, it almost bore me up, and when I first struck the water, which I did upon the summit of a wave, I bounded off again and ricochetted several times from one wave to another, like the shot fired from a gun along the surface of the sea, or the oyster-shell skimmed over the lake by the truant child.  The last bound that I gave, pitched me into the rigging of a small vessel on her beam ends, and I hardly had time to fetch my breath before she turned over.  I scrambled up her bends, and fixed myself astride upon her keel.