Several persons were standing over me, and Augustus, paler than death, was busily occupied in chafing my hands.
Upon seeing me open my eyes, his exclamations of gratitude and joy excited alternate laughter and tears from the rough-looking personages who were present.

The mystery of our being in existence was now soon explained.

We had been run down by the whaling-ship, which was close-hauled, beating up to Nantucket with every sail she could venture to set, and consequently running almost at right angles to our own course.

Several men were on the look-out forward, but did not perceive our boat until it was an impossibility to avoid coming in contact--their shouts of warning upon seeing us were what so terribly alarmed me.

The huge ship, I was told, rode immediately over us with as much ease as our own little vessel would have passed over a feather, and without the least perceptible impediment to her progress.