the end I shook him off, poor devil, to his death. And he was the
last I tried to aid: have I not said already what I was become?

In a little an oar floated my way: I threw my arms across it and
gripped it with my chin as I swam. It relieved me greatly. Up and
down I rode among the oily black hillocks; I was down when there
was a sudden flare as though the sun had risen, and I saw still a
few heads bobbing and a few arms waving frantically around me. At
the same instant a terrific detonation split the ears; and when I
rose on the next bald billow, where the ship lay burning a few
seconds before, there remained but a red-hot spine that hissed and
dwindled for another minute, and then left a blackness through which
every star shone with redoubled brilliance.

And now right and left splashed falling missiles; a new source of
danger or of temporary respite; to me, by a merciful Providence, it
proved the latter.

Some heavy thing fell with a mighty splash right in front of me.
A few more yards, and my brains had floated with the spume. As it
was, the oar was dashed from under my armpits; in another moment
they had found a more solid resting-place.

It was a hen-coop, and it floated bars upwards like a boat. In
this calm it might float for days. I climbed upon the bars-and the
whole cage rolled over on top of me.

Coming to the surface, I found to my joy that the hen-coop had
righted itself; so now I climbed up again, but this time very
slowly and gingerly; the balance was undisturbed, and I stretched