The night that followed was perhaps one of the most appalling experiences that ever befell me; but I had by this time become so inured to terrible trials that I merely took it as a matter of course.
Imagine for yourself the scene.

The giant waves are rolling mountains high; the darkness of night is gathering round us fast, and I and my heroic wife are immersed in the tremendous sea, hanging on for dear life to a little dug-out canoe only fourteen inches wide.

Although we were soon thoroughly exhausted with our immersion in the water, we dared not climb aboard.

Will it be believed that _all night long_ we were compelled to remain in the sea, clinging to the canoe, half drowned, and tossed about like the insignificant atoms we were in the midst of the stupendous waves, which were literally ablaze with phosphorescent light?
Often as those terrible hours crawled by, I would have let go my hold and given up altogether were it not for Yamba's cheery and encouraging voice, which I heard above the terrific roar of the storm, pointing out to me how much we had been through already, and how many fearful dangers we had safely encountered together.

It seemed to me like the end of everything.
I thought of a certain poem relating to a man in a desperate situation, written, I believe, by an American, whose name I could not remember.