At last, at last, the folds were sawed through. Appadocca seized the stool with both hands.
“Now for life again, and the accomplishment of my design,” he said, and endeavoured to pitch it through the hole, but ill-fortune stepped in again to baulk him. The stool was too large to pass through the opening, he tried it various ways, but with no success.
“Destiny,” he calmly muttered, as he put it down with the fortitude of a Diogenes.
He cast his eyes around him; there was a large Spanish pitcher of clay, such as are used in the tropics, in which water was brought to him: a drowning man, they say, will grasp at a straw: he laid hold of it, he tried it, it passed the opening.
“Now, farewell, good ship,” he said, and leaned over the side of the vessel. He allowed the pitcher to fall quietly into the water, and he himself, plunged after it into the unfathomable waste.
“A man overboard!” some one cried on deck.
“No, no:” said another, “it’s only the slack of the main-brace.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Quite sure.”
“All right.”