I felt the hair of my scalp bristle, and a violent shudder thrilled through me as those dreadful cries smote upon my ear, for they seemed to be the utterance of some human being in the very last extremity of both physical and mental anguish, the protest of a lost soul being wrenched violently out of its sinful human tenement, cries of such utter, unimaginable despair as the finite mind of man is unable to find a cause for.  Yet, despite the agony of horror that froze my blood, I instinctively thrust my helm hard down and flattened in the sheets fore and aft; for the thought came to me that, perchance, a few fathoms out there, veiled from sight in the soft, velvet blackness of the night, some poor wretch--a victim, like myself, to the fury of the late gale-- clinging desperately to a fragment of wreckage, might have caught a glimpse of the longboat's sails, sliding blackly along against the stars, and have emitted those terrible cries as a last despairing appeal for help and succour.  Accordingly, as the boat swept round and came to the wind, careening gunwale-to as she felt the full strength of the night breeze in her dew-sodden canvas, I sprang to my feet and, clapping both hands funnel-wise to my mouth, sent forth a hail: