n its fury.

And indeed I cared very little just then what fate awaited me; for I was
so ill, my frame was so racked with fever and my head so distracted with
the fierce throbbing and beating of the wildly coursing blood in it,
that the only thing I craved for was relief from my sufferings. It was
a matter of the utmost indifference to me at that moment whether the
relief came from death or from any other source, so long as it came
quickly. My strength was leaving me with astounding rapidity, and I was
quite aware that if I wished to husband the little that still remained
to me I ought to eat; but the mere idea of eating excited so violent a
repugnance, that it was with the utmost difficulty I resisted the almost
overwhelming temptation to pitch my slender stock of sea-sodden biscuit
overboard. On the other hand, I was consumed with a torturing thirst
that I vainly strove to assuage by so reckless a consumption of my
equally slender stock of wine, that at the end of the day only two
bottles remained. Such recklessness was of course due to the fact that
I was unaccountable for my actions; I was possessed of a kind of
madness, and I knew it, but I had lost all control over myself, and
cared not what happened. More than once I found myself seriously
considering the advisability of throwing myself off the raft, and so
ending everything without more ado; and I have often wondered why I did
not do so; it was certainly not the fear of death that prevented me. As
the day wore on my sufferings steadily increased in intensity; my brain
throbbed and pulsated with pain so acute that it seemed as though a
million wedges were being driven into my skull; a host of weird,
outrageous, and horrible fancies chased each other through my
imagination; I became possessed of the idea that the raft was surrounded
and hemmed in by an ever-increasing multitude of frightful sea monsters,
who fought with each other in their furious efforts to get within reach
of me; day and night seemed to come and go with bewildering rapidity;
and finally everything became involved in a condition of hopelessly
inextricable confusion, that eventually merged into oblivion.

My next consciousness was that of a sound of gurgling, running water,
and of a buoyant, heaving, plunging motion; of flashing sunshine coming
and going upon my closed eyelids; of the vibrant hum of wind through
taut rigging and in the hollows of straining canvas; of a murmur of
voices, and