Arrived at this point, I turned a little to look, but all was perfectly black. I stretched out my hand and felt about.
I snatched it back with a cry of horror. Yes, a cry of horror; for, though I could not hear it, I felt it escape from my lips. I had touched something all wet and cold lying close beside me, and I felt that it was one of my companions who had been cast up or dragged ashore—dead.
Shivering violently, I shrank away, and stretched out my hand in the other direction—my left hand now, with my arm numbed, and my shoulder aching when I moved it, as if the joint had become stiffened and would not work.
I touched somebody there—something cold and smooth and wet, and drew my hand away again, when, as it glided over the sand, it touched something else round and soft and long, and—yes—plaited. It was a long tail.
“Ching!” I ejaculated; and, gaining courage, I felt again in the darkness, to find that it grew thinner. I tried again in the other direction, and once more touched the round wet object, which did not seem so cold, and then the next moment a hand caught mine and held it.
I was right; it was Ching. I knew him by his long nails.
Not alone! I had a companion in the darkness, one who was nearly as much stunned as I, for he moved no more, but lay holding on by my left hand, and for a time I was content to listen to the savage roar of the wind. But at last, as my brain worked and I mastered the sensation of horror, I began to feel about again with my right hand, till I touched the same cold, wet object I had encountered before.
It was an arm, quite bare and cold; while now I could not withdraw my hand, but lay trembling and shuddering, till I felt that perhaps I was not right—that any one lying dead would not feel like that; and my hand glided down to the wrist.
I knew nothing about feeling pulses only from having seen a doctor do so, but by chance my fingers fell naturally in the right place in the hollow just above the wrist joint, and a thrill of exultation ran through me, for I could distinctly feel a tremulous beating, and I knew that my imagination had played me false—that the man was not dead.