ould say, but now--

"God, when will it end?" he muttered savagely.

The City of Panama lurched back and forth like a rocking-horse.
Somewhere forward they must be lowering the boats. He stumbled along the
deck, holding to the rail for support. The spray dashed in his face, and
he could feel the water from his hair trickling into his ears. He shook
his head and laughed grimly, but he could not hear his own laughter. The
terrific noise of the wind drowned everything else. It became
increasingly difficult to keep his hold on the rail. He was wet to the
waist. Each time the wave struck him higher, and he noticed that the
lurching grew heavier. He was strong, six feet of hard muscle, but the
water was stronger. His mouth was filled with it, and his ears seemed
bursting. His rugged features twisted into hard lines. As he struggled
forward, he raged at the blindness that kept him from seeing.

"Not a chance, not a chance," he repeated over and over, as he strained
to hold the deck. There was a lull in the wind, and he marveled at the
absence of human sound. Suddenly he divined the cause. His mind became a
chaos of rage and fear.

"They have left me," he cried; "left me without a thought." He shut his
teeth hard, then ducked as another heavy beating weight of water crashed
over him. It seemed it would never lift and leave him free to breathe.
His arms and feet no longer seemed a part of him. He wondered if the
vessel were under the surface, and nerved himself to let go. But he
could not. The rail was his only hope of life. Slowly the water began to
draw his fingers away from it. The next surge sent his body
out--somewhere. He struck forward with both hands and kicked his feet
mechanically. Was it the roar of the wind or the weight of the water
itself that beat into his ears? The sudden pain in his lungs, told him
that he had reached the surface. How good the air felt! Shaking the
water out of his ears, he listened. Nothing but the wind was audible.

It seemed to him that he had been swimming for hours in the icy waves.
Events on the ship, the shock of the boiler explosion, the rush for the
deck, all seemed to have happened long ago.

"If I could only see," he thought, "I might find the ship again." It
occurred to him that he might be swimming in a circle, and he resolved
to keep in one direction, but how? He remembered that he had always
tended to swim to the left, so he increased his right-arm stroke.
Suddenly a heavy t