Max Pemberton

“ For some hours I lay in a heavy trance of sleep, wherein the terror of the truth still affected me, but would not stir me from my bunk. All the reality of my prison, the unspeakable cruelty of it, and that which imagination superadded, remained and were with me in my dreams. I heard the waters falling about the Zero, could depict the black depths of the river in which she lay, and see myself lying there as in a coffin of steel until the very plates were rusted and the waters gave up their dead. ”

“ Bear with me during the instants of suspense when I knew not whether the waters lied or beat upon the steel as the heralds of truth. The Zero moved, I said; they had started her engines from above.
There are moments in a man's life of which no words shall tell fitly, and this was one of them. While I could hear the pumps humming in the engine-room, while the Zero lurched now to this side, now to that, as though heavy seas were breaking upon her, I remained incredulous. ”

“ A man bent down from the platform and thrust a lantern into my face. He was Jack-o'-lantern, blind with drink and staggering in his gait. What more he would have said, what message he carried to me, I shall never know until the end of time. A horror of the pit defying all reason, a desire of life and light and God's heaven above me, gave me the strength of ten such as he and sent me to his throat. ”