be
near that spot now.

"Never mind," he said to himself, "I mean to get out of this."

Not knowing to which bank he was nearest, he had resolved, almost
instinctively, to swim towards the right bank, on which Saigon stands.

He was thus swimming for about half an hour, and began already to feel
his muscles stiffening, and his joints losing their elasticity, while
his breathing became oppressed, and his extremities were chilled, when
he noticed from the wash of the water that he was near the shore. Soon
he felt the ground under his feet; but, the moment he touched it, he
sank up to his waist into the viscous and tenacious slime, which makes
all the Cochin China rivers so peculiarly dangerous.

There was the land, no doubt, and only the darkness prevented his seeing
it; and yet his situation was more desperate than ever. His legs were
caught as in a vice; the muddy water was boiling nearly up to his lips;
and, at every effort to extricate himself, he sank deeper in, a little
at a time, but always a little more. His presence of mind now began to
leave him, as well as his strength; and his thoughts became confused,
when he touched, instinctively feeling for a hold, the root of a
mangrove.

That root might be the saving of his life. First he tried its strength;
then, finding it sufficiently solid, he hoisted himself up by it,
gently, but with the frenzied energy of a drowning man; then, creeping
cautiously on the treacherous mud, he finally succeeded in reaching firm
ground, and fell down exhausted.

He was saved from drowning; but what was to become of him, naked,
exhausted, chilled as he was, and lost in this dark night in a strange
and deserted country? After a moment, however, he rose, and tried to get
on; but at every step he was held back on all sides by lianes and cactus
thorns.

"Well," he said, "I must stay here till day breaks."

The rest of the night he spent in walking up and down, and beating his
chest, in order to keep out the terrible chills which penetrated to the
very marrow of his bones. The first light of dawn showed him how he was
imprisoned within an apparently impenetrable thicket, out of which, it
seemed, he could never find his way. He did find it, however, and after
a walk of four hours, he reached Saigon.

Some sailors of a merchant-ship, whom he met, lent him a few clothes,
and carried him on board "The Conquest," where he arrived more dead than
alive.

"Where do you come from, great