he coveted, he would have perished miserably; whereas it will soon
appear that, although his sufferings are not yet ended, his being
carried away was the most fortunate circumstance which could have
occurred, and proved the means of his ultimate preservation.

Newton had resigned himself to his fate. He ceased from further
exertion, except such as was necessary to keep him above water a little
longer. Throwing himself on his back, he appealed to Heaven for pardon,
as he floated away with the stream. That Newton had as few errors and
follies to answer for as most people, is most certain; yet even the most
perfect soon run up a long account. During our lives our sins are
forgotten, as is the time at which they were committed; but when death
is certain, or appears to be so, it is then that the memory becomes most
horribly perfect, and each item of our monstrous bill requires but a few
seconds to be read, and to be acknowledged as too correct. This is the
horror of death; this it is which makes the body struggle to retain the
soul, already pluming herself and rustling her wings, impatient for her
flight. This it is which constitutes the pang of separation, as the
enfeebled body gradually relaxes its hold, and--all is over, at least on
this side of the grave.

Newton's strength was exhausted; his eyes were fixed on the clear blue
sky, as if to bid it farewell; and, resigned to his fate, he was about
to give over the last few painful efforts which he was aware could only
prolong, not save his life, when he received a blow on his shoulders
under the water. Imagining that it proceeded from the tail of a shark,
or of some other of the ravenous monsters of the deep, which abound
among these islands, and that the next moment his body would be severed
in half, he uttered a faint cry at the accumulated horror of his death;
but the next moment his legs were swung round by the current, and he
perceived, to his astonishment, that he was aground upon one of the
sand-banks which abounded on the reef, and over which the tide was
running with the velocity of a sluice. He floundered, then rose, and
found himself in about one foot of water. The ebb-tide was nearly
finished; and this was one of the banks which never showed itself above
water, except during the full and change of the moon. It was now about
nine o'clock in the morning, and the sun shone with great power. Newton,
faint from want of sustenance, hardly knew whether to consider t