The wind began to whistle, and flung spray in his face.
He raised his fallen head and staring eyeballs, and cursed the wind.
While he was thus raving, he became sensible of a black object to windward.
It looked like a rail, and a man leaning on it.
He stared, he cleared the wet hair from his eyes, and stared again.
The thing, being larger than himself and partly out of water, was drifting to leeward faster than himself.
He stared and trembled, and at last it came nearly abreast, black, black.
He gave a loud cry, and tried to swim towards it; but encumbered with his life-buoy, he made little progress. The thing drifted abreast of him, but ten yards distant.
As they each rose high upon the waves, he saw it plainly.
It was the very raft that had been the innocent cause of his sad fate.