w the furtive,
murderous glint in his beady eyes. I heard the soft pat of his feet on
the wet deck, and I heard his suppressed breathing. But I could not
move or speak.

"He came and stood over me, then reached down and softly pressed the
tips of his forefingers into my throat, just below the ears and back of
the cheek bones. Softly at first, so that I hardly felt it, then more
strongly, and a sense of weakness of body came over me, something
distinct from the weakness that I had felt while sinking down to try
and sleep. It seemed a stopping of breath. I could not move, as yet,
but could see, out of the corners of my eye, and a more hateful,
murderous face never afflicted me than the face of that Japanese cook.

"He kept it up, steadily increasing the pressure, and soon I realized
that I was not breathing. Then, I do not know why, there came to me the
thought of that Sunday school superintendent, and his advice, to pray
when in trouble. I forgot my grouch. I said to myself, 'God help me,
God help me,' and I wakened. I found that I could move. I shook off the
Jap, and he staggered back, chuckling and cluttering in his language. I
rose to my feet, weak and shaky, and he ran away from me; but I found
myself without power to follow. I was more than weak; I was just alive,
just able to breathe, but I could not speak. I tried to, but the words
would not come. He shut himself into his galley, and, with regard to
the condition of the schooner, and my own helplessness, I painfully
climbed into the boat I had stocked and cleared away the davit falls.
Then I lay down.

"I have a dim remembrance of that sleep in the boat, of waking
occasionally to drive that cowardly Jap off with an upraised oar; of my
utter inability to speak to him, and the awful difficulty of taking a
long breath. But the final plunge of the schooner stands out. I was
awake, or as nearly awake as I could be. The Jap was forward, and the
decks were awash. I knew that she was going down, and got out my knife
to cut the falls when the boat floated. I did this successfully, for,
though I could not speak, I could move, and as the schooner plunged
under, and the screams of that heathen rang in my ears, I cut the bow
tackle, then the stern tackle, and found myself adrift in a turmoil of
whirlpools.

"I was picked up a few days later by a fruiter, and taken into New
York. I found my hair had turned white. I've been working as waiter
most of the time since, hoping t