; but whether Mr Brooke was
still near me, whether the men were before me, or whether there was any
more boat at all than that upon which I was seated, I did not know. All
I knew was that I was there, and that I was safe, in spite of all the
attempts made by the typhoon to drag me out and sweep me away like a
leaf over the milky sea.

It cannot be described. Every sense was numbed. And if any lad who
reads this were to take the most terrible storm he ever witnessed,
square it, and then cube it, I do not believe that he would approach the
elemental disturbance through which we were being hurled.

There was a rocky shore in front of us, and another rocky island shore
to our left; and between these two shores lay the channel for which we
had tried to make. But Mr Brooke's rule over the boat was at an end
the moment the storm was upon us, and, as far as I could ever learn
afterwards, no one thought of rocks, channel, saving his life, or being
drowned. The storm struck us, and with its furious rush went all power
of planning or thinking. Every nerve of the body was devoted to the
tasks of holding on and getting breath.

How long it lasted--that wild rush, riding on the spray, held as it were
by the wind--I don't know. I tell you I could not think. It went on
and on as things do in a horrible dream, till all at once something
happened. I did not hear it, nor see it, hardly even felt it. I only
know that something happened, and I was being strangled--choked, but in
another way. The hands which grasped my throat to keep me from
breathing had, I believe, ceased to hold, and something hot and terrible
was rushing up my nostrils and down my throat, and I think I then made
some effort with my hands. Then I was being dragged along through water
and over something soft, and all at once, though the deafening,
confusing noise went on, I was not being swept away, but lying still on
something hard.

I think that my senses left me entirely then for a few moments--not
more, for I was staring soon after at the dull light of white water
sweeping along a little way off, and breathing more freely as I
struggled hard to grasp what it all meant, for I did not know. I saw
something dim pass me, and then come close and touch me, as if it sank
down by my side; and that happened again and again.

But it was all very dream-like and strange: the awful, overwhelming,
crushing sound of the wind seemed to press upon my brain so that I c