At first all went well. He was borne up the seas; he slid down the seas
in a lather of white foam. Presently the rise and fall grew steeper,
and the foam began to break over his head. Robert could no longer guide
himself; he must go as he was carried. Then in an instant he was carried
into a hell of waters where, had it not been for his lifebelt and the
plank, he must have been beaten down and have perished. As it was, now
he was driven into the depths, and now he emerged upon their surface to
hear their seething hiss around him, and above it all a continuous boom
as of great guns--the boom of the breaking seas.
The plank was almost twisted from his grasp, but he clung to it
desperately, although its edges tore his arms. When the rollers broke
over him he held his breath, and when he was tossed skywards on their
curves, drew it again in quick, sweet gasps. Now he sat upon the very
brow of one of them as a merman might; now he dived like a dolphin,
and now, just as his senses were leaving him, his feet touched bottom.
Another moment and Robert was being rolled along that bottom with a
weight on him like the weight of mountains. The plank was rent from him,
but his cork jacket brought him up. The backwash drew him with it into
deeper water, where he lay helpless and despairing, for he no longer had
any strength to struggle against his doom.
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