A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder James De Mille

39
that a new peril had arisen from the assault of this monster of the
deep. Nor was it this one alone that was to be dreaded. Where one was,
others were sure to be; and if this one should pass me by it would
only leave me to be assailed by monsters of the same kind, and these
would probably increase in number as I advanced farther into this
realm of darkness. And yet, in spite of these grisly thoughts, I
felt less of horror than before, for the fear which I had was now
associated with action; and as I stood waiting for the onset and
listening for the approach of the enemy, the excitement that ensued
was a positive relief from the dull despair into which I had sunk but
a moment before.
Yet, though I waited for a new attack, I waited in vain. The monster
did not come back. Either the flash and the noise had terrified him,
or the bullets had hit him, or else in his vastness he had been
indifferent to so feeble a creature as myself; but whatever may have
been the cause, he did not emerge again out of the darkness and
silence into which he had sunk. For a long time I stood waiting; then
I sat down, still watchful, still listening, but without any result,
until at length I began to think that there was no chance of any new
attack. Indeed, it seemed now as though there had been no attack at
all, but that the monster had been swimming at random without any
thought of me, in which case my rifle-flashes had terrified him more
than his fearful form had terrified me. On the whole this incident
had greatly benefited me. It had roused me from my despair. I grew
reckless, and felt a disposition to acquiesce in whatever fate might
have in store for me.
And now, worn out with fatigue and exhausted from long watchfulness
and anxiety, I sank down in the bottom of the boat and fell into a
deep sleep.
CHAPTER VI
THE NEW WORLD
How long I slept I do not know. My sleep was profound, yet disturbed
by troubled dreams, in which I lived over again all the eventful
scenes of the past; and these were all intermingled in the wildest
confusion. The cannibals beckoned to us from the peak, and we landed