Symzonia: Voyage of Discovery

Night set in without any abatement of the hurricane, and served but to heighten the terror of its effects. The water in this part of the world, being charged with animalculæ or phosphoric matter, assumed in the darkness of the night, the appearance of a sea of liquid fire, boiling and whirling with ceaseless agitation. A poet would not need a better type from which to describe the infernal lake provided for the wicked. Happily we rode out the storm until nearly day-light, when the gale having abated, and there being every indication of more moderate weather, I went to my cabin to put on dry clothes, and left the deck in charge of Mr. Boneto, to whose watch Mr. Slim was now attached. I had not been long below when a violent shock, like that of a ship striking her side against a floating wreck, induced me to hasten back. I found my people in the greatest alarm, and the repeated blows, which made every timber in the ship tremble, were indeed sufficient cause of apprehension. I soon discovered the difficulty. The lashings of the starboard paddle port had given way; the port was open, and the shutter was swinging at liberty. The gale had left a prodigious sea, which rolled the ship so much that at times she appeared to be going quite over. This caused the heavy port shutter, which was thirty feet long by three feet wide, to fly quite open, and then return against the side with frightful violence. It appeared that the lashings had been chafed in consequence of the boxes being badly stowed; and that the weight of the boxes in which were the large bones and all my scientific collections, together with the weight of the cable stowed upon the top of them, had burst open the port, through which the big bones, all my curiosities and ological treasures, as well as the cable, had launched into the sea!