louder than a small groan. I made several strokes with my arms,
and suddenly spied a life-buoy floating almost twenty yards ahead
of me. I made for it in a transport of joy, for the sight of it
was all the assurance I could ask that they knew on the ship that
I had tumbled overboard; and, coming to the buoy, I seized and
threw it over my head, and then got it under my arms and so floated.

The breeze, such as it was, was on the ship's quarter, and she
would need to describe a considerable arc before she rounded to.
I could hear very faintly the voices on board, the flinging down
of coils of rope, the dim echoes of hurry and commotion. I again
sought to exert my lungs, but could deliver no louder note than a
moan. The agony of mind I was under lest a shark should seize me I
cannot express, and my strained eyeballs would come from the tall
shadow of the ship to the the sea about me in a wild searching of
the liquid ebony of it for the sparkling configuration of the most
abhorred of all fish. I could have sworn that hours elapsed before
they lowered a boat from the ship, that seemed to grow fainter and
fainter every time I looked at her, so swallowing is the character
of ocean darkness, and so subtle apparently, so fleet in fact, the
settling away of a fabric under canvas from an object stationary
on the water. I could distinctly hear the rattle of the oars in
the rowlocks, and the splash of the dipped blades, but could not
discern the boat. It was speedily evident, however, that they were
pulling wide of me; my ear could not mistake. Again I tried to
shout, but to no purpose. Manifestly no one had thought of taking
my bearings when I fell, and I, who lay south, was being sought
for southwest.

Time passed; the boat never approached me within a quarter of a