66 The Natural History of British Ducks 
early rising. The next thing was to retrieve our game, as we had no dog ; 
and this seemed easy enough. A little deeper — perhaps up to the waist — and 
there they were. Captain Murray was about twenty yards to my left, and we 
ploughed along for some five yards, when, suddenly, I found myself struggling 
up to my waist in mud, and in another moment held fast under the arms. 
Though at the moment I could not move, I could just see over the reeds a 
chance of escape, and, in no fear as to my power to retreat, I called to my 
companion that I could go no further and pointed out where the duck were, 
some ten yards to his right front. He seemed to be going on fairly firm 
ground, and was actually up to the spot where the birds had fallen, when, to 
my horror, I saw him throw up his arms and disappear from sight. Then 
followed an awful minute. He still grasped his gun, which I saw waving 
wildly in the air ; and his groans and kicks that I could plainly hear told me 
that he was really fighting for his life. Could anyone imagine a more fearful 
death — to be engulfed in that awful abyss of slime and stench? I must 
say I felt mad in the impotence of my position, for what I had regarded 
a moment before as a joke was now a most serious business. But Death 
often comes and looks at us with his cruel eyes and then, baulked of his 
prey, passes on to claim some other victim elsewhere. That morning Captain 
Murray fought and wrestled with him as I hope he will never have occasion 
to do again. But the man won ; his strength and pluck saved him when each 
was strained to its uttermost limit. For fully a minute and a half he kicked 
and pushed to force himself backwards to some shallower holding, and at last 
exhausted he fell back on to a slightly firmer tuft of floating sedge. This 
kept his face just above the ooze, and after lying there for a second or two 
he managed by a great effort to throw himself further backwards and find 
standing-ground up to his shoulders. Meanwhile I had extricated myself and 
was up to him, but he walked to the edge without assistance, and after a brief 
rest made for home. How closely comedy and tragedy tread on the heels of 
each other in this strange world of ours ! At 7 a.m. one of us had narrowly 
escaped from a most frightful form of death ; at 7.30 the sight of the gate 
