chased by all the furies. When I had reached the shore it was
nothing to run to the base in front of our house and be free. But I
was destined not to enjoy my happiness very long, for almost the very
moment I once more had solid ground beneath my feet I heard cries of
distress coming from the third and second ships, and my name called
repeatedly, which made me think something must have happened. Swiftly
as I had made for the shore over the noisy plank walk, I now hastened
back over it. There was no time to lose. Fritz Ehrlich had tried to
imitate my leap from the kitchen, but, failing to equal my distance,
had fallen into the water between the ships. And there the poor boy
was, digging his nails into the cracks in the ship's hull. Swimming
was out of the question, even if he knew anything about it. Besides,
the water was icy cold. To reach him from the deck with the means at
hand was impossible. So I grasped a piece of rope hanging from a rope
ladder and, letting myself down the side of the ship, tried every way
I could think of to lengthen my body as much as possible, till finally
Fritz was barely able to catch hold of my left foot, which reached
furthest down, while I held on above with my right hand. "Take hold,
Fritz!" But the doughty fellow, who may have realized that we should
both be lost if he really took a firm hold, contented himself with
laying his hand lightly upon the toe of my boot, and little as that
was, it nevertheless sufficed to keep his head above water. To be
sure, he may have been by natural endowment a "water treader," as they
are called; or he may have had the traditional luck of the
illegitimate, which seems to me on second thought more probable. In
any case he kept afloat till some people came from the shore and
reached a punt-pole down to him, while some others untied a boat
lying at Hannemann's Clapper and rowed it into the space between the
ships to fish him out. The moment that the saving punt-pole arrived
some man unknown to me reached down from the ladder, seized me by the
collar, and with a vigorous jerk hoisted me back on deck.

On this occasion not a word of reproach was uttered, though I could
not say as much of any other occasion of the kind. The people took
Fritz Ehrlich, drenched and freezing, to a house in the immediate
neighborhood, while the rest of us started home in a very humble frame
of mind. To be sure, I had also a feeling of elation, despite the fact
that my prospects for