He had to renounce his attempt and drag himself back towards the chest, on which he fell, exhausted, while Tiger covered him with caresses.
The master and the dog were desperately thirsty, and when Arthur stretched out his hand, he found Tiger lying on his back, with his paws up and his hair on end.

He then felt Tiger all over, and his hand encountered a string passed round the dog's body.

A strip of paper was fastened to the string under his left shoulder.
Arthur Pym had reached the last stage of weakness.

Intelligence was almost extinct.

However, after several fruitless attempts to procure a light, he succeeded in rubbing the paper with a little phosphorus--( the details given in Edgar Poe's narrative are curiously minute at this point)--and then by the glimmer that lasted less than a second he discerned just seven words at the end of a sentence.