I could see nothing but a strange, dull, whitish light when I managed to hold my eyelids up for a moment, but nothing else was visible; and above all--the deafening roar, the fearful buffeting and tearing at me--there was one thing which mastered, and that was the sensation of being stunned and utterly confused.  I was, as it were, a helpless nothing, beaten and driven by the wind and spray, onward, onward, like a scrap of chaff.  Somebody was clinging to me, partly to save himself, partly to keep me from being dragged out of the boat; but whether Mr Brooke was still near me, whether the men were before me, or whether there was any more boat at all than that upon which I was seated, I did not know.  All I knew was that I was there, and that I was safe, in spite of all the attempts made by the typhoon to drag me out and sweep me away like a leaf over the milky sea.