{"id":"01KG8AMGGH2RJ59822SRF373MX","cid":"bafkreiencyc2tc22wb3bpypz2tvh7xtpig6r2dbsgmq6ne5phpapdsfmcm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":15119,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.278Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":15053,"text":"had seen, and read, and heard, and all I had thought and felt in my\r\nlife, seemed intensified in one fixed idea in my soul. But dense as\r\nthis idea was, it was made up of atoms. Having fallen from the\r\nprojecting yard-arm end, I was conscious of a collected satisfaction in\r\nfeeling, that I should not be dashed on the deck, but would sink into\r\nthe speechless profound of the sea.\r\n\r\nWith the bloody, blind film before my eyes, there was a still stranger\r\nhum in my head, as if a hornet were there; and I thought to myself,\r\nGreat God! this is Death! Yet these thoughts were unmixed with alarm.\r\nLike frost-work that flashes and shifts its scared hues in the sun, all\r\nmy braided, blended emotions were in themselves icy cold and calm.\r\n\r\nSo protracted did my fall seem, that I can even now recall the feeling\r\nof wondering how much longer it would be, ere all was over and I\r\nstruck. Time seemed to stand still, and all the worlds seemed poised on\r\ntheir poles, as I fell, soul-becalmed, through the eddying whirl and\r\nswirl of the maelstrom air.\r\n\r\nAt first, as I have said, I must have been precipitated head-foremost;\r\nbut I was conscious, at length, of a swift, flinging motion of my\r\nlimbs, which involuntarily threw themselves out, so that at last I must\r\nhave fallen in a heap. This is more likely, from the circumstance, that\r\nwhen I struck the sea, I felt as if some one had smote me slantingly\r\nacross the shoulder and along part of my right side.\r\n\r\nAs I gushed into the sea, a thunder-boom sounded in my ear; my soul\r\nseemed flying from my mouth. The feeling of death flooded over me with\r\nthe billows. The blow from the sea must have turned me, so that I sank\r\nalmost feet foremost through a soft, seething foamy lull. Some current\r\nseemed hurrying me away; in a trance I yielded, and sank deeper down\r\nwith a glide. Purple and pathless was the deep calm now around me,\r\nflecked by summer lightnings in an azure afar. The horrible nausea was\r\ngone; the bloody, blind film turned a pale green; I wondered whether I\r\nwas yet dead, or still dying. But of a sudden some fashionless form\r\nbrushed my side—some inert, coiled fish of the sea; the thrill of being\r\nalive again tingled in my nerves, and the strong shunning of death\r\nshocked me through.\r\n\r\nFor one instant an agonising revulsion came over me as I found myself\r\nutterly sinking. Next moment the force of my fall was expanded; and\r\nthere I hung, vibrating in the mid-deep. What wild sounds then rang in\r\nmy ear! One was a soft moaning, as of low waves on the beach; the other\r\nwild and heartlessly jubilant, as of the sea in the height of a\r\ntempest. Oh soul! thou then heardest life and death: as he who stands\r\nupon the Corinthian shore hears both the Ionian and the Aegean waves.\r\nThe life-and-death poise soon passed; and then I found myself slowly\r\nascending, and caught a dim glimmering of light.\r\n\r\nQuicker and quicker I mounted; till at last I bounded up like a buoy,\r\nand my whole head was bathed in the blessed air.\r\n\r\nI had fallen in a line with the main-mast; I now found myself nearly\r\nabreast of the mizzen-mast, the frigate slowly gliding by like a black\r\nworld in the water. Her vast hull loomed out of the night, showing\r\nhundreds of seamen in the hammock-nettings, some tossing over ropes,\r\nothers madly flinging overboard the hammocks; but I was too far out\r\nfrom them immediately to reach what they threw. I essayed to swim\r\ntoward the ship; but instantly I was conscious of a feeling like being\r\npinioned in a feather-bed, and, moving my hands, felt my jacket puffed\r\nout above my tight girdle with water. I strove to tear it off; but it\r\nwas looped together here and there, and the strings were not then to be\r\nsundered by hand. I whipped out my knife, that was tucked at my belt,\r\nand ripped my jacket straight up and down, as if I were ripping open\r\nmyself. With a violent struggle I then burst out of it, and was free.\r\nHeavily soaked, it slowly sank before my eyes.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJWFZWKXG90KP5ZBWF6NJ","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMFZDVVZP4Y0WB4NJA9CD","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AMGGHN04JJ3X6E4N36M6D","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:39.441Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:56.854Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}