A look of wild fierceness was on the other’s features, and before Jack could speak his arms were uplifted, swinging overhead a belaying pin.
Reading at a glance Offut’s horrible purpose, Jack attempted to seize his upraised hands, but he had barely made a move before the weapon descended upon him!
With an indistinct recollection of a dull sense of pain in his head, Jack knew no more until he was brought back to consciousness by the feeling of water around him and it slowly dawned upon him that he had been sent overboard from the ship into the sea by the blow from Fret Offut.
It was too dark for him to see any distance, so he listened for some sound of the steamer.
Once he thought he caught the regular swish, swish of the big wheel; but he must have been mistaken, for after a moment he realized that the Standish was not within hearing.
He had begun to shout for help, and this shouting he kept up until he was hoarse, and he felt that it would be better to save all of his strength in the great battle for life ahead.
No one, who has not been there, can know the utter hoplessness of being castaway upon the great, boundless ocean with not even a plank to keep him from a watery grave.
Jack North was brave and sanguine, but for a time he felt that it was useless for him to try and keep up. Then the thought of home and loved ones, with all the bright dreams and hopes of life, gave him the resolution to fight for victory over defeat until the very last. He had heard of sailors who had been cast away, and who had managed to keep afloat a whole night and day. Might not he keep from drowning until morning?
At any rate he would not give up while he had the strength to struggle against fate.
Buoyed up with hopes which he knew were groundless, he swam on and on through the dark expanse of waters girdling him.