shed about in a moaning and whirling darkness. A deadly
chill paralyzed his limbs. His closed eyes saw a red heaven, a sky of
blood with black stars. His ear drums were buzzing with a roaring
_glu-glu_, while his body was turning somersaults through the darkness.
His confused brain imagined that an infinitely deep hole had opened in
the depths of the sea, that all the waters of the ocean were passing
through it, forming a gigantic vortex, and that he was swirling in the
center of this revolving tempest.

"I am going to die!... I am already dead!" said his thoughts.

And in spite of the fact that he was resigned to death, he moved his
legs desperately, wishing to bring himself up to the yielding,
treacherous surface. Instead of continuing to descend, he noticed that
he was going up, and in a little while he was able to open his eyes and
to breathe, judging from the atmospheric contact that he had reached
the top.

He was not sure of the length of time he had passed in the
abyss,--surely not more than a few minutes, since his breathing
capacity as a swimmer could not exceed that limit.... He, therefore,
experienced great astonishment upon discovering the tremendous changes
which had taken place in so short a parenthesis.

He thought it was already night. Perhaps in the upper strata of the
atmosphere were still shining the last rays of the sun, but at the
water's level, there was no more than a twilight gray, like the dim
glimmer of a cellar.

The almost even surface seen a few minutes before from the height of
the bridge was now moved by broad swells that plunged him in momentary
darkness. Each one of these appeared a hillock interposed before his
eyes, leaving free only a few yards of space. When he was raised upon
their crests he could take in with rapid vision the solitary sea that
lacked the gallant mass of the ship, astir with dark objects. These
objects were slipping inertly by or moving along, waving pairs of black
antennae. Perhaps they were imploring help, but the wet desert was
absorbing the most furious cries, converting them into distant
bleating.

Of the _Mare Nostrum_ there was no longer visible either the mouth of
the smokestack nor the point of a mast; the abyss had swallowed it
all.... Ferragut began to doubt if his ship had ever really existed.

He swam toward a plank that came floating near, resting his arms upon
it. He used to be able to remain entire hours in the sea, when naked
and within si