d going back to life without
the others. I couldn't have helped them--but it would seem as if I might
have, and didn't. Heavens! When is this going to end? I can't bear it
long. The best thing I could do would be to drown myself like a man, and
get it over before the worst can happen."

He flung up his arms, meaning to sink, and wondering whether it would be
really possible for a strong swimmer deliberately to drown himself, or
whether instinct would keep on countermanding the brain's orders, until
exhaustion did its work. One last look at the world he gave before the
plunge, and that look showed him a thing which he could not believe.
Between him and the black horns of the outer reef he saw once more two
dark heads close together.

"It can't be!" Trent said to himself; nevertheless, instead of flinging
away life, with all his strength he struck out lustily toward those
floating dots in the water. Then, suddenly, something cold and solid
rubbed against his leg. How the knowledge of what it was and what to do
came to him so quickly, and how he acted upon that knowledge swiftly
almost as light moves, he could not have told; but he knew that a shark
was after him; he knew that it must turn over on its back in the water
before the cavernous, fang-set jaws could crunch his bone and flesh, and
like a flash he dived. Queerly, as he shot down through the water, he
thought again of something outside the desperate need of
self-preservation. "This is what happened when I saw their heads go down
before and supposed it was all up with them both!" he said to himself.
"That's what they are supposing about me now, if they're looking my way.
Well, we shall see. It's going to be a race between this infernal brute
and me. I'd bet on him--but the dark horse sometimes gets in."

After that he had no more consecutive thoughts. Primitive instinct guided
him, and hope was the light which marked the goal. The others were not
dead yet, so he had a right to his life, if he could keep it; and toward
that end he strained, swimming as he had never swum before, diving,
darting this way and that, feeling rather than seeing which spot to
avoid, which to strive for. At last his foot touched rock. He had reached
that part of the jagged coral-reef which rose out of the sea. He ceased
to swim, and found that slipping, sliding, stumbling on a surface, which
felt to clinging hands and feet as if coated with ice, and smeared with
soap, he could scramble up