The works of Edgar Allan Poe; newly collected and edited, with a memoir, critical introductions, and notes, by Edmund Clarence Stedman and George Edward Woodberry; the illustrations by Albert Edward Sterner.

A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM

and steady breeze from the south-west, while the
sun shone brightly, so that the oldest seaman among
us could not have foreseen what was to follow.
" The three of us - my two brothers and myself -
had crossed over to the islands about two o'clock P.
M., and soon nearly loaded the smack with fine fish,
which, we all remarked, were more plenty that day
than we had ever known them. It was just seven,
by my watch, when we weighed and started for home,
so as to make the worst of the Strom at slack water,
which we knew would be at eight.
"We set out with a fresh wind on our starboard
quarter, and for some time spanked along at a great
rate, never dreaming of danger, for indeed we saw
not the slightest reason to apprehend it. All at once
we were taken aback by arireeze from over Helseg-.
gen. This was most unusual - something that had
never happened to us before - and I began to feel
a little uneasy, without exactly knowing why. We
put the boat on the wind, but could make no headway at all for the eddies, and I was upon the point
of proposing to return to the anchorage, when, looking astern, we saw the whole horizon covered with
a singular copper-colored cloud that rose with the
most amazing velocity.
"In the mean time the breeze that had headed us
off fell away, and we were dead becalmed, drifting
about in every direction. This state of things, however, did not last long enough to give us time to think
about it. In less than a minute the storm was upon
us- in less than two the sky was entirely overcast -
and what with this and the driving spray, it became
suddenly so dark that we could not see each other
in the smack.
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