I confess that a madness seized me, that I shrieked aloud as the women had shrieked, and beat the water with my numb hands.
How long this lasted I have no conception, for a blankness intervened, of which I remember no more than one remembers of troubled and painful sleep.

When I aroused, it was as after centuries of time; and I saw, almost above me and emerging from the fog, the bow of a vessel, and three triangular sails, each shrewdly lapping the other and filled with wind.
Where the bow cut the water there was a great foaming and gurgling, and I seemed directly in its path.

I tried to cry out, but was too exhausted.
The bow plunged down, just missing me and sending a swash of water clear over my head.

Then the long, black side of the vessel began slipping past, so near that I could have touched it with my hands.

I tried to reach it, in a mad resolve to claw into the wood with my nails, but my arms were heavy and lifeless.