VII
A TRUCEI came to the surface, fighting for breath, my hands battling fruitlessly at the slimy side of the ship, which slid past as relentlessly as the passage of time. I tried to cry out, but the salt water choked me. Not a sound came from the decks above. The blackness was absolute, except for the mild gleam of a watch-lanthorn on the poop.
Danger and the peril of death often have been my lot, but never in all my life—no, not even when the Keepers of the Trail had bound me to the torture-stake—have I experienced the abysmal fear which clutched my heart as I struggled to save myself from the chilling waters whose numbing embrace was throttling my vitality no less surely than the long arms which had cast me overboard.
Death was only a brace of minutes away—not death from drowning, b
