a moment, as if overcome by the dreadful
recollection.

"Well," he continued, "when she went over, I let go of the rigging and
threw myself into the sea. I made up my mind it was all over with me,
yet it turned out that this was not to be the case. I was buried under a
ton or two of foaming water, but I came to the surface again, and found
myself a long distance off from the overturned ship, which was fast
settling in the water. I struck out, as a man will even when he doesn't
know what use it is, and kept myself afloat for several minutes, the
waves all the time driving me to leeward. Suddenly I saw a dark mass
tumbling on the seas a short distance away. I thought it must be one of
our boats that had got loose when the ship went over, and so I struck
out for it. I was growing weak, blind, and dazed in the heavy seas, when
I was caught up by a wave and flung squarely on top of the floating
object. I grabbed wildly, and caught hold of something hard and slimy. I
clung to it, though, and to my great amazement I found I was hanging to
the flipper of the dead whale. You know they float on their sides when
dead, with one flipper up in the air and the other under water. Well, it
wasn't much of a life-raft, as you may well suppose, but a man in such a
fix as I was will take anything he can get. I hung on there all right,
the dead whale jumping and tumbling under me like a live fish. Toward
morning the wind shifted, and at sunrise the gale broke. The sea began
to go down right away, but a great swell was running. When the sun got
fairly up I realized what a terrible position I was in. The heat was
intense, and the gases from the carcass nearly overwhelmed me. But that
was nothing. The air was filled with the discordant cries of hungry
sea-birds. They swooped down from every direction, and pecked at the
carcass. They beat at me with their wings, and acted as if they knew I
was a doomed man, and the sooner they could drive me into the sea the
better for me. But I fought them off, and sitting with one leg on each
side of the flipper and clasping it with one arm, I clung to my dreadful
life-buoy.

"And now came a new horror. Sharks appeared and began to fight around
the whale, snapping and biting and tearing off pieces of the flesh. I
realized that if this continued my life-buoy would be destroyed; but I
was helpless. Then thirst began to torture me. All day long I tossed on
that dead whale, with the birds and the sharks around me