To me it seemed as though that terrible night would never end, and even when at length the hour of dawn arrived there was no perceptible amelioration in the conditions.  The darkness remained as intense as it had been at midnight, and it was not until eight bells--in this case eight o'clock in the morning--that a feeble glimmer of daylight came filtering through the opaque blackness of the firmament over our heads, dimly revealing the shapeless masses of flying cloud and scud, and permitting us to view our surroundings for a space of about a quarter of a mile.  But, contracted as was our view, it was more than sufficient to impress us with a deep and overwhelming sense of the impotence of man in the presence of God's power as manifested in this appalling demonstration of elemental fury.  Now, even more than during the hours of darkness, did we appear to be constantly on the point of being lifted out of the water by the terrific strength of the wind.  As often as the schooner was hove up on the summit of a sea, and thus exposed to the full force of the hurricane, we could feel her tremble and perceptibly lift when the wind struck her beneath her upturned bilge.  As for the sea, I had never seen anything like it before, nor have I since.  When people desire to convey the idea of an exceptionally heavy sea they speak of it as running "mountains high".  In the case of which I am now speaking the expression appeared to be no exaggeration at all, for as wave after wave came sweeping down upon us with uplifted, menacing crest, looking up to that crest from the liquid valley in front of it seemed like gazing up the side of a mountain which was threatening to fall upon us and crush us to atoms.  Indeed, the wild upward sweep of the schooner, heeling almost to her beam ends as she was flung aloft upon the breast of the onrushing wave, was an experience terrifying enough to turn a man's hair grey.  Yet, after watching the movements of the schooner for about half an hour, and noting how, time after time, when the little barkie seemed to be trembling on the very brink of destruction, she unfailingly came to in time to avoid being overwhelmed, I grew so inured to the experience that I found myself able to go below and make an excellent breakfast with perfect equanimity.