By a desperate effort I raised myself in the cart, and attained a sitting posture, which served only to show me the extent of my danger.

There lay my native land--my own England--the land where I was born, and to which my wishes, since my earliest age, had turned with all the prejudices of national feeling--there it lay, within a furlong of the place where I yet was; that furlong, which an infant would have raced over in a minute, was yet a barrier effectual to divide me for ever from England and from life.

I soon not only heard the roar of this dreadful torrent, but saw, by the fitful moonlight, the foamy crests of the devouring waves, as they advanced with the speed and fury of a pack of hungry wolves.
The consciousness that the slightest ray of hope, or power of struggling, was not left me, quite overcame the constancy which I had hitherto maintained.

My eyes began to swim--my head grew giddy and mad with fear--I chattered and howled to the howling and roaring sea.

One or two great waves already reached the cart, when the conductor of the party whom I have mentioned so often, was, as if by magic, at my side.
He sprang from his horse into the vehicle, cut the ligatures which restrained me, and bade me get up and mount in the fiend's name.
Seeing I was incapable of obeying, he seized me as if I had been a child of six months old, threw me across the horse, sprang on behind, supporting with one hand, while he directed the animal with the other.
In my helpless and painful posture, I was unconscious of the degree of danger which we incurred; but I believe at one time the horse was swimming, or nearly so; and that it was with difficulty that my stern and powerful assistant kept my head above water.