“Then the boat sank with a great roar, and for about a thousand years, it seemed to me, I was under water. I didn’t do anything. I couldn’t think.
“I was only conscious of a tremendous weight of water and a feeling that I would burst open. Instinct alone made me cling to the raft.
“When it finally brought me to the surface I was as nearly dead as I care to be. I lay there on the thing in a half-conscious condition for an endless time. If my life had depended on my doing something, I would have been lost.
“Then gradually I came to, and began to spit out salt water and gasp for breath. I gathered my wits together and sat up. My hands were absolutely numb, and I had to loosen the grip of my fingers with the help of my toes. Odd sensation.
“Then I looked about me. My biscuits and water and rope were safe, but the sail-cloth had vanished. I remember that this annoyed me hugely at the time, though I don’t know what earthly good it would have been.
“The sea was fairly calm, and I could see all about. Not a human being was visible, only a few floating bits of wreckage. Every man on board must have gone down with the ship and drowned, except myself.
“Then I caught sight of something that made my heart stand still. The huge head of Gulliver was coming rapidly toward me through the water!
“The dog was swimming strongly, and must have leaped from the Old Squaw before she sank. My raft was the only thing afloat large enough to hold him, and he knew it.
“I drew my revolver, but it was soaking wet and useless. Then I sat down on the cracker-tin and gritted my teeth and waited. I had been alarmed, I must admit, when the boiler blew up and the panic began, but that was nothing to the terror that seized me now.
“Here I was all alone on the top of the Pacific Ocean with a horrible demon making for me as fast as he could swim. My mind was benumbed, and I could think of nothing to do. I trembled and my teeth rattled. I prayed for a shark, but no shark came.