Nearly twenty minutes passed, and the man's fatigue began to change to exhaustion. The overpowering sense of the inevitable pressed upon him. With the weariness came a strange comfort. He need not swim all the long way to Suez. There was another course. He would die. He would resign his existence since he was thus abandoned. He threw up his hands impulsively and sank. Down, down he went through the warm water. The physical death took hold of him and he began to drown. The pain of that savage grip recalled his anger. He fought with it furiously. Striking out with arms and legs he sought to get back to the air. It was a hard struggle, but he escaped victorious and gasping to the surface. Despair awaited him. Feebly splashing with his hands he moaned in bitter misery—
"I can't—I must. O God! let me die."
The moon, then in her third quarter, pushed out from behind the concealing clouds and shed a pale, soft glitter upon the sea. Upright in the water, fifty yards away, was a black triangular object. It was a fin. It approached him slowly.
His last appeal had been heard.
"UPRIGHT IN THE WATER, FIFTY YARDS AWAY, WAS A BLACK TRIANGULAR OBJECT—A FIN."
FOOTNOTES:
[A] As by a very remarkable coincidence there are two Winston Churchills, both writers, we may mention that this Mr. Churchill is the son of the late Lord Randolph Churchill.