148 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



From this time I have little more to speak of than 

 a dull and stupid endurance. A period of pain there 

 was to go through, when my mind was bewildered 

 with thoughts of home, and of those I loved in my 

 present abode. There was a bitter pang to think 

 that I must resign my young existence, and there 

 was a realising of the pains of suffocation. I 

 thought it was a horrid death to drown. I remem- 

 bered the popular idea of death by drowning as 

 coming easily ; but I felt this to be wrong, and knew 

 by anticipation that I should have a cruel struggle 

 when the water occupied my nose and mouth. Both 

 my companion and myself seemed reduced at last to 

 apathy. We neither spoke nor moved ; and both, 

 evidently, thought it vain to continue any longer the 

 struggle for existence. We bade each other farewell, 

 and then uttered no more words. What remained 

 to us of life was given to inward discipline, and to 

 that communing of which the wise man speaks 

 not lightly. 



The events that I have been describing, with I 

 fear but little distinctness of arrangement, had car- 

 ried us on to about midnight. It is difficult to 

 estimate properly the duration of time under such 

 circumstances ; but so nearly as I can guess, it must 

 have been about ten o'clock when the cliasse maree 

 passed us. It must have been little less than two 

 hours that intervened between this time and the 

 happy turn for the better that was awaiting us. My 



