then I found that I could swim, and began to rise to the surface. A man
tried to grapple me as I went up; his forefinger caught in my shoe,
between the shoe and my foot. I succeeded in kicking off my shoe, and
thus got rid of him, and then I rose to the surface of the water."

"Take breath after that, Jim," said Ben, handing him the ale.

"I can tell you that I could hardly take breath when I came to the
surface, for my head came up through a quantity of tar, which floated
like fat on a boiler, and it nearly smothered me; for, you see, there
had been one or two casks of tar on the decks, which had stove when the
ship was going down, and the tar got up to the top of the water before I
did. It prevented me from seeing at first, but I heard the guns firing
as signals of distress." Here Turner drank some ale.

"Well," said he, after a short pause, "I may as well finish my story. As
soon as I could clear the tar from my eyes, I saw the main topsail
halyard-block about level with the water's edge about eight or ten yards
from me; so I swam to it and rode on it, holding on by the halyards, and
then I looked about me. The fore, main, and mizzentops were all above
water, as was a part of the bowsprit, and also part of the ensign-staff,
with the flag hoisted--for, you see, messmates, we went down in only
thirteen and a half fathom water, that is, about eighty feet; and, as I
said before, she measured sixty-six feet from the keelson up to the
taffrail; and she grounded as nearly upright as a vessel could; for the
lighter, which was fast to leeward when she went down, caught the main
yard, which helped to right her as she sank--but the lighter went down
with her. Well, as I looked round, I saw the admiral's baker in the
mizzen shrouds, and there was the body of the woman I had dragged out of
the port rolling about close to him. The baker was an Irishman, of the