He disappeared into the black, furious whirlpool with that word. The
next instant my own fingers were torn from their hold by a sudden jerk
of the water, and I followed.

Chapter XIV.

A FISHING PARTY.

Water, when whirling rapidly, has a keen distaste for any foreign
object; but when once the surface breaks, that very repulsion seems to
multiply the indescribable fury with which it endeavors to bury the
object beneath its center.

Once in the whirlpool, I was carried in a swift circle round its
surface for what seemed an age, and I think could not have been less
than eight or ten seconds in reality. Then suddenly I was turned
completely over, my limbs seemed to be torn from my body, there was a
deafening roar in my ears, and a crushing weight pressed against me
from every side.

Any effort of any kind was worse than useless, as well as impossible;
indeed, I could hardly have been said to be conscious, except for the
fact that I retained sufficient volition to avoid breathing or
swallowing the water.

The pressure against my body was terrific; I wondered vaguely why life
had not departed, since--as I supposed--there was not a whole bone left
in my body. My head was bursting with dizziness and pain; my breast
was a furnace of torture.

Suddenly the pressure lessened and the whirling movement gradually
ceased, but still the current carried me on. I struck out wildly with
both arms--in an effort, I suppose, to grasp the proverbial straw.

I found no straw, but something better--space. Instinct led the fight
to reach it with my head to get air, but the swiftness of the current
carried me again beneath the surface. My arms seemed powerless; I was
unable to direct them.

I hardly know what happened after that. A feeling of most intense
suffocation in my chest; a relaxation of all my muscles; a sensation of
light in my smarting eyes; a gentle pressure from the water beneath,
like the rising gait of a saddle-horse; and suddenly, without knowing
why or when or how, I found myself lying on hard ground, gasping,
choking, sputtering, not far from death, but nearer to life than I had
thought ever to be again.

I lay for several minutes unable to move; then my brain awoke and
called for life. I twisted over on my face, and moved my arms out and
in with the motion of a swimmer; the most exquisite pains shot through
my chest and abdomen. My head weighed tons.

Water ran from my nose and mouth in gurgling st