another dozen yards when I felt the strong suction of
the foundering ship. I fought against it with desperate energy, and in
about a minute's time it relaxed, and I ceased swimming.

"Now," I asked myself, "what is the next thing to be done? I suppose it
was instinct that prompted me to get into this life-buoy and swim away
from the sinking ship; but in doing so have I not merely exchanged a
quick for a lingering death? If I had stuck to the ship I should have
gone down with her, and died with very little suffering, if any; while,
so far as I can see, I am now fated to drift about in this buoy until I
perish slowly and miserably of cold, hunger, and thirst."

It was a most depressing reflection, and for a moment I felt strongly
tempted to slip out of the buoy, throw up my hands, sink, and have done
with it. But no; love of life, self-preservation, which we are told is
the first law of nature, would not permit me to act foolishly; reason
reasserted herself, reminding me that while there is life there is hope.
I remembered that I was floating in a stretch of water that is the
highway for ships bound round the Cape to and from Australia and New
Zealand. It is a highway that, if not quite so busy as London's Fleet
Street, is traversed almost daily by craft of one sort or another, bound
either east or west; and something might come along at any moment and,
if I could but attract attention to myself, pick me up. Besides, I did
not really believe in "giving up". It had been instilled into me from
my earliest childhood that the correct way to meet difficulties is to
_fight_ them, and to fight the harder the more formidable appear the
difficulties. And the doctrine is sound; I had and have proved it to be
so, over and over again, and I meant again to put it to the test, then,
in the most discouraging combination of adverse circumstances with which
I had ever been confronted.

But the water was bitterly cold; if I remained submerged to my armpits,
as I then was, I could not survive long enough to get a fair chance. I
needed a raft of some sort buoyant enough to support me practically dry;
and, remembering that there were numerous loose articles such as deck-
chairs, gratings, and what not that would probably float off the wreck
when she sank, I turned and swam back towards the spot where the
_Saturn_ had gone down, hoping that I might be fortunate enough to find
something that would afford me the support I required. An