Excerpt from Prisoners and Captives, Vol. 1 From the dark mysterious depths of the ocean wavering ripples, mounting in radia tion to the surface, broke at times the blue uniformity of its bosom. Occasionally a delicate nautilus floated along before some unappreciable breath, presently to fold its sails and disappear. Long trailers of sea weed floating idly almost seemed to be endowed with a sinuous life and movement. No bird in the air, no fish in the sea! Nothing to break the awful silence! A wreck might float and drift, here or there, upon these aimless waters for years together and never be found. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.