it was the mate who had taken charge of the long-boat. Was I then
the single survivor of those thirty souls? I was still watching my
poor lost com rade, when that happened to him against which even I
was not proof. Through the deep translucent blue beneath me a slim
shape glided; three smaller fish led the way; they dallied an instant
a fathom under my feet, which were snatched up, with what haste you
may imagine; then on they went to surer prey.

He turned over; his dreadful face stared upwards; it was the chief
officer, sure enough. Then he clove the water with a rush, his
dead hand waved, the last of him to disappear; and I had a new
horror to think over for my sins. His poor fingers were all broken
and beaten to a pulp.

The voices of the night came back to me - the curses and the cries.
Yes, I must have heard them. In memory now I recognized the voice
of the chief mate, but there again came in the assisted imagination.
Yet I was not so sure of this as before. I thought of Santos and
his horrible heavy cane. Good God! she was in the power of that!
I must live for Eva indeed; must save myself to save and protect my
innocent and helpless girl.

Again I was a man; stronger than ever was the stimulus now, louder
than ever the call on every drop of true man's blood in my perishing
frame. It should not perish! It should not!

Yet my throat was parched; my lips were caked; my frame was hollow.
Very weak I was already; without sustenance I should surely die.
But as yet I was far enough from death, or I had done disdaining
the means of life that all this time lay ready to my hand. A number