he clung to his raft, hanging his head as though drowning. Then as
night closed down upon him he heard still other shouts, but these were
cries of help, cries of anguish, cries of death. The rescuers were
searching for him only, leaving the others to their fate.

He lost all notion of time. An agonizing cold was paralyzing his entire
frame. His stiffened and swollen hands were loosening from the raft and
grasping it again only by a supreme effort of his will.

The other shipwrecked men had taken the precaution to put on their life
preservers when the ship began to sink. Thanks to this apparatus, their
death agony was going to be prolonged a few hours more. Perhaps if they
could hold out until daybreak, they might be discovered by some boat!
But he!...

Suddenly he remembered the _Triton_.... His uncle also had died in the
sea; all the most vigorous members of the family had finally perished
in its bosom. For centuries and centuries it had been the tomb of the
Ferraguts; with good reason they had called it "_mare nostrum_."

He fancied that the currents might possibly have dragged his uncle's
dead body from the other promontory to the place over which he was
floating. Perhaps he might be now beneath his feet.... An irresistible
force was pulling at them; his paralyzed hands loosened their hold on
the wood.

"Uncle!... Uncle!"

In his thoughts he was shrieking to his relative with the timorous
plaint of the little fellow taking his first swimming lesson. But his
agonized hands again encountered the cold and weak support of the raft
instead of that island of hard muscles crowned with a hairy and smiling
face.

He continued his tenacious floating, struggling against the drowsiness
that was urging him to relax from his drifting support and let himself
go to the bottom, to sleep ... to sleep forever! His shoes and clothing
were continuing to pull and tug with even greater force. They became an
undulating shroud, growing heavier and heavier, surging and dragging
down and down to the uttermost depths. His desperation made him raise
his eyes and look at the stars.... So high!... Only to be able to grasp
one of them, as his hands were now clutching the wood!...

At the same time he made instinctively a movement of repulsion. His
head had sunk in the water without his being conscious of it. A bitter
liquid was beginning to filter through his mouth....

He made a mighty effort to keep himself in a vertical position, looki