n, nervously.

"And yet," said Fink, "there are few plights so bad but they might be
still worse. Just think; in that case it would be some comfort to have
even these good-for-nothing planks between us and the water; but what if
we ourselves lay on the stream--no boat, no shore--mountain waves all
round?"

"I at least should be lost!" cried Anton, with genuine horror.

"I have a friend, a good friend, to whom I trust implicitly in any
crisis, to whom this once happened. He sauntered down to the shore on a
glorious evening, had a fancy to bathe, stripped, plunged, and struck
out gayly. The waves lifted him up and drew him down; the water was
warm, the sunset dyed the sea with ten thousand exquisite hues, and the
golden sky glowed above him. The man shouted with ecstasy."

"You were that man?" inquired Anton.

"True. I went on swimming for about an hour, when the dull look of the
sky reminded me that it was time to return; so I made for land; and what
think you, Master Wohlfart, that I saw?"

"A ship?" said Anton; "a fish?"

"No. I saw _nothing_--the land had vanished. I looked on all sides--I
rose as high as I could out of the water--there was nothing to be seen
but sea and sky. The current that set out from the land had
treacherously carried me out. I was in mid ocean, somewhere between
England and America, that I knew; but this geographical fact was by no
means soothing to one in my circumstances. The sky grew dark, the
hollows filled with black uncanny shadows, the waves got higher, and a
cold wind blew round my head; nothing was to be seen but the dusky red
of the sky and the rolling waters."

"Horrible!" cried Anton.

"It was a moment when no priest in the world could have prevented a poor
human being from wishing himself a pike, or some such creature. I knew
by the sky where the land lay. Now came the question, which was
stronger--the current or my arm? I began a deadly struggle with the
treacherous ocean deities. I should not have done much by such swimming
as they teach in schools. I rolled like a porpoise, and struck out
desperately for about two hours; then the labor got hard indeed. It was
the fiercest battle I ever fought. The sky grew dark, the emerald waves
pitchy black, only they were crested with foam that blew in my face. At
times a single star peeped from the clouds--that was my only comfort. So
I swam on and on, and still there was no land to be seen. I was tired
out, and the hideous darknes