was what remained of life. Did I want to become like them? A
thousand times no; and I wept tears of sweet sadness over my
glorious youth going out with the tide. (And who has not seen the
weeping drunk, the melancholic drunk? They are to be found in all
the bar-rooms, if they can find no other listener telling their
sorrows to the barkeeper, who is paid to listen.)

The water was delicious. It was a man's way to die. John
Barleycorn changed the tune he played in my drink-maddened brain.
Away with tears and regret. It was a hero's death, and by the
hero's own hand and will. So I struck up my death-chant and was
singing it lustily, when the gurgle and splash of the current-
riffles in my ears reminded me of my more immediate situation.

Below the town of Benicia, where the Solano wharf projects, the
Straits widen out into what bay-farers call the "Bight of Turner's
Shipyard." I was in the shore-tide that swept under the Solano
wharf and on into the bight. I knew of old the power of the suck
which developed when the tide swung around the end of Dead Man's
Island and drove straight for the wharf. I didn't want to go
through those piles. It wouldn't be nice, and I might lose an
hour in the bight on my way out with the tide.

I undressed in the water and struck out with a strong, single-
overhand stroke, crossing the current at right-angles. Nor did I
cease until, by the wharf lights, I knew I was safe to sweep by
the end. Then I turned over and rested. The stroke had been a
telling one, and I was a little time in recovering my breath.

I was elated, for I had succeeded in avoiding the suck. I started