There was the land, no doubt, and only the darkness prevented his seeing it; and yet his situation was more desperate than ever.  His legs were caught as in a vice; the muddy water was boiling nearly up to his lips; and, at every effort to extricate himself, he sank deeper in, a little at a time, but always a little more.  His presence of mind now began to leave him, as well as his strength; and his thoughts became confused, when he touched, instinctively feeling for a hold, the root of a mangrove.

That root might be the saving of his life.  First he tried its strength; then, finding it sufficiently solid, he hoisted himself up by it, gently, but with the frenzied energy of a drowning man; then, creeping cautiously on the treacherous mud, he finally succeeded in reaching firm ground, and fell down exhausted.

He was saved from drowning; but what was to become of him, naked, exhausted, chilled as he was, and lost in this dark night in a strange and deserted country?  After a moment, however, he rose, and tried to get on; but at every step he was held back on all sides by lianes and cactus thorns.

“Well,” he said, “I must stay here till day breaks.”

The rest of the night he spent in walking up and down, and beating his chest, in order to keep out the terrible chills which penetrated to the very marrow of his bones.  The first light of dawn showed him how he was imprisoned within an apparently impenetrable thicket, out of which, it seemed, he could never find his way.  He did find it, however, and after a walk of four hours, he reached Saigon.

Some sailors of a merchant-ship, whom he met, lent him a few clothes, and carried him on board “The Conquest,” where he arrived more dead than alive.

“Where do you come from, great God! in such a state?” exclaimed his comrades when they saw him.

“What has happened to you?”

And, when he had told them all he had gone through since they parted, they said,—­

“Certainly, my dear Champcey, you are a lucky fellow.  This is the second accident from which you escape as by a miracle.  Mind the third!”

“Mind the third!” that was exactly what Daniel thought.

For, in the midst of all the frightful sufferings he had undergone during the past night, he had reflected deeply.  That block which had fallen on his head, no one knew whence; this boat sinking suddenly, and without apparent cause—­were they the work of chance alone?

The awkwardness of the boatman who had so unexpectedly turned up to offer him his services had filled his mind with strange doubts.  This man, a wretched sailor, might be a first-class swimmer; and, having taken all his measures before upsetting the boat, he might easily have reached land after the accident.

“This boatman,” Daniel thought, “evidently wanted me to perish.  Why, and what purpose?  Evidently not for his sake.  But who is interested in my death?  Sarah Brandon?  No, that cannot be!”