he continued to squall his rage. He fell into the sea and went under,
gulping a mouthful of salt water into his lungs, and came up strangling
but swimming. Swimming was one of the things he did not have to think
about. He had never had to learn to swim, any more than he had had to
learn to breathe. In fact, he had been compelled to learn to walk; but
he swam as a matter of course.

The wind screamed about him. Flying froth, driven on the wind's breath,
filled his mouth and nostrils and beat into his eyes, stinging and
blinding him. In the struggle to breathe he, all unlearned in the ways
of the sea, lifted his muzzle high in the air to get out of the
suffocating welter. As a result, off the horizontal, the churning of his
legs no longer sustained him, and he went down and under perpendicularly.
Again he emerged, strangling with more salt water in his windpipe. This
time, without reasoning it out, merely moving along the line of least
resistance, which was to him the line of greatest comfort, he
straightened out in the sea and continued so to swim as to remain
straightened out.

Through the darkness, as the squall spent itself, came the slatting of
the half-lowered mainsail, the shrill voices of the boat's crew, a curse
of Borckman's, and, dominating all, Skipper's voice, shouting:

"Grab the leech, you fella boys! Hang on! Drag down strong fella! Come
in mainsheet two blocks! Jump, damn you, jump!"