My thoughts ran wholly on the actual facts, and, as I have said, faintly at times, but to my salvation, on Carette and home.
While the sun shone, and the masses of soft white cloud floated slowly against the blue, hope still held me, if precariously at times.

At midday, indeed, the fierce bite of his rays on my bare back--for we had stripped for the fight and I had on only my breeches and belt--combined with the salting of the previous night and the dazzle of the dancing waves added greatly to my discomfort.

I felt like an insect under a burning glass, and suffered much until I had the sense to slice a piece off my sail with my knife and pull it over my raw shoulder bones.

But when night fell again, the chill waste of waters washed in on my soul and left me desolate and hopeless, and I hardly hoped to see the dawn.
I remember little of the night, except that it was full of long-drawn agony and seemed as if it would never end.

But for the rope under my arms and the loop of the sail, into which some time during the night I slipped, I must have gone, and been lost.
In the morning the sun again woke what life was left in me.