Ah, how cold was the sea's bosom, how bitter its lips! Struggling still with the great wave, struggling in vain, blinded and half-choked with salt water, he was driven violently against a great black object tumbling about in the surf, and with all the strength of his little hands he clung to it.

The water rolled over him, and beat against him, but he would not lose his hold; and at last there came a bigger wave and lifted him up and cast him right on to the object he was clinging to.

It was as if some enormous monster of the sea had caught him up and put him in that place, just as the Lady of the Hills had often snatched him up from the edge of some perilous precipice to set him down in a safe place.
There he lay exhausted, stretched out at full length, so tossed about on the billows that he had a sensation of being in a swing; but the sea grew quiet at last, and when he looked up it was dark, the stars glittering in the dim blue vault above, and the smooth, black water reflecting them all round him, so that he seemed to be floating suspended between two vast, starry skies, one immeasurably far above, the other below him.

All night, with only the twinkling, trembling stars for company, he lay there, naked, wet, and cold, thirsty with the bitter taste of sea-salt in his mouth, never daring to stir, listening to the continual lapping sound of the water.
Morning dawned at last; the sea was green once more, the sky blue, and beautiful with the young, fresh light.

He was lying on an old raft of black, water-logged spars and planks lashed together with chains and rotting ropes.