with bare hands; our muscles cracking to the strain, his voice uttering one croaking cry for help as I bore in on his windpipe.  He was a snake, a cat, slipping out of my grip as by some magic, turning and twisting like an eel, yet unable to wholly escape, or overcome, my strength and skill.  At last I had him prone against the rail, the weight of us both so hard upon it, the stout wood cracked, and we both went over, grappling together until we splashed into the water below.  The shock, the frantic effort to save myself, must have loosened my hold, for, as I fought a way back to the surface, I was alone, lost in the veil of mist.

Blinded by fog, the water dripping from my hair, weakened by struggle and loss of blood, my mad rage against LeVere for the moment obscured all else in my mind.  What had become of the fellow?  Had he gone down like a stone?  Or was he somewhere behind this curtain of fog?  A splash to the right led me to take a dozen strokes hastily, but to no purpose.  The sound was not repeated and I no longer retained any sense of direction to guide me.  The sea was a steady swell, lifting my body on the crest of a wave, to submerge it an instant later in the deep hollow.  I could feel the motion, but scarcely perceived it otherwise, as the thick gray mist obscured everything three feet away.  It deadened and confused sound also.  Again and again I felt I located the near presence of the Namur, the sound of feet on deck, the shout of a voice, the flapping of canvas against the yards; but as I desperately turned that way, the noise ceased, or else apparently changed into another point of compass.  Once a cry reached me, thrilling with despair, although I could not catch the words, and again came to me plainly enough the clank of an oar in its rowlock.  I struck out madly for the point from whence it came, only to find the same rolling water, and obscuring fog.  My strength began to fail, hope left me as I sank deeper and deeper into the remorseless grip of the sea.  There was nothing left to fight for, to struggle after; the fog about me became red and purple before my straining eyes, and then slowly grew black; my muscles refused to respond to my will; I no longer swam, but floated so low in water the crest of the waves swept over my face.  I no longer cared, gripped by a strange, almost delicious languor.  I was not afraid; my lips uttered no cry, no prayer—­I drifted out into total unconsciousness and went down.

CHAPTER XXV

THE OPEN BOAT

I came back to a consciousness of pain and illness, unable at once to realize where I was, or feel any true sense of personality.  I seemed to be floating through the air, aware dimly of suffering, but helplessly in the grasp of some power beyond all struggling against.  Then slowly I comprehended that I rested in a boat, tossed about by a fairly heavy sea; that it was night and there were stars visible in the sky overhead.  I stared at these, vacant of thought, wondering at their gleam, when a figure seemed to lean over me, and I caught the outline of a face, gazing eagerly down into my own.  Instantly memory came back in a flash—­this was not death, but life; I was in a boat with her, I could not move my hands, and my voice was but a hoarse whisper.