my head was tingling with pain, and so buzzy that i had no sense worth speaking of, but just kept myself afloat in an instinctive sort of way by paddling a little with my hands. and i could not see well for what i thought was water in my eyes—until i found that it was blood running down over my forehead from a gash in my scalp that went from the top of my right ear pretty nearly to my crown. had the blow that made it struck fair it certainly would have finished me; but from the way that the scalp was cut loose the blow must have glanced.
the chill of the water freshened me and brought my senses back a little: for which i was not especially thankful at first, being in such pain and misery that to drown without knowing much about it seemed quite the best thing that i could hope for just then. indeed, when i began to think again, though not very clearly, i had half a mind to drop my arms to my sides and so go under and have done with it—so despairing was i as i bobbed about on the swell among the patches of gulf-weed which littered the dark ocean, with the brig drawing away from me rapidly, and no chance of a rescue from her even had she been near at hand.
whether i had or had not hurried the matter, under i certainly should have gone shortly—for the crack on my head and the loss of blood from it had taken most of my strength out of me, and even with my full strength i could not have kept afloat long—had not a break in the clouds let through a dash of moonlight that gave me another chance. it was only for a moment or two that the moonlight lasted, yet long enough for me to make out within a hundred feet of me a biggish piece of wreckage—which but for that flash i should not have noticed, or in the dimness would have taken only for a bunch of weed.
near though it was, getting to it was almost more than i could manage; and when at last i did reach it i was so nearly used up that i barely had strength to throw my arms about it and one leg over it, and so hang fast for a good many minutes in a half-swoon of weakness and pain.
but the feel of something solid under me, and the certainty that for a little while at least i was safe from drowning, helped me to pull myself together; and before long some of my strength came back, and a little of my spirit with it, and i went about settling myself more securely on my poor sort of a raft. what i had hit upon, i found, was a good part of a ship's mast; with the yards still holding fast by it and steadying it, and all so clean-looking that it evidently had not been in the water long. the main-top, i saw, would give me a back to lean against and also a little shelter; and in that nook i would be still more secure because the futtock-shrouds made a sort of cage about it and gave me something to catch fast to should the swell of the sea roll me off. so i worked along the mast from where i first had caught hold of it until i got myself stowed away under the main-top: where i had my body fairly out of water, and a chance to rest easily by leaning against the upstanding woodwork, and a good grip with my legs to keep me firm. and it is true, though it don't sound so, that i was almost happy at finding myself so snug and safe there—as it seemed after having nothing under me but the sea.
and then i set myself—my head hurting me cruelly, and the flow of blood still bothering me—to see what i could do in the way of binding up my wound; and made a pretty good job of it, having a big silk handkerchief in my pocket that i folded into a smooth bandage and passed over my crown and under my chin—after first dowsing my head in the cold sea water, which set the cut to smarting like fury but helped to keep the blood from flowing after the bandage was made fast. at first, while i was paddling in the water and splashing my way along the mast and while the bandage was flapping about my ears, i had no chance to hear any noises save those little ones close to me which i was making myself. but when i had finished my rough surgery, and leaned back against the top to rest after it—and my heart was beginning to sink with the thought of how utterly desperate my case was, afloat there on the open ocean with a gale coming on—i heard in the deep silence a faint rythmic sound that i recognized instantly as the pulsing of a steamer's engine and the steady churning of her screw. this mere whisper in the darkness was a very little thing to hang a hope upon; but hope did return to me with the conviction that the sound came from the steamer of which i had seen the lights just before i was pitched overboard, and that i had a chance of her passing near enough to me to hear my hail.
i peered eagerly over the waters, trying to make out her lights again and so settle how she was heading; but i could see no lights, though with each passing minute the beating of the screw sounded louder to my straining ears. from that i concluded that she must be coming up behind me and was hid by the top from me; and so, slowly and painfully, i managed to get on my hands and knees on the mast, and then to raise myself until i stood erect and could see over the edge of the top as it rose like a little wall upright—and gave a weak shout of joy as i saw what i was looking for, the three bright points against the blackness, not more than a mile away. and i was all the more hopeful because her red and green lights showed full on each side of the white light on her foremast, and by that i knew that she was heading for me as straight as she could steer.
i gave another little shout—but fainter than the first, for my struggle to get to my feet, and then to hold myself erect as the swell rolled the mast about, made me weak and a little giddy; and i wanted to keep on shouting—but had the sense not to, that i might save my strength for the yells that i should have to give when the steamer got near enough to me for her people to hear my cries. so i stood silent—swaying with the roll of the mast, and with my head throbbing horribly because of my excitement and the strain of holding on there—while i watched her bearing down on me; and making her out so plainly as she got closer that it never occurred to me that i and my bit of mast would not be just as plain to her people as her great bulk was to me.
i don't suppose that she was within a quarter of a mile of me when i began my yelling; but i was too much worked up to wait longer, and the result of my hurry was to make my voice very hoarse and feeble by the time that she really was within hail. she came dashing along so straight for me that i suddenly got into a tremor of fear that she would run me down; and, indeed, she only cleared me by fifty feet or so—her huge black hull, dotted with the bright lights of her cabin ports, sliding past me so close that she seemed to tower right up over me—and i was near to being swamped, so violently was my mast tossed about by the rush and suck of the water from her big screw. and while she hung over me, and until she was gone past me and clear out of all hearing, i yelled and yelled!
at first i could not believe, so sure had i been of my rescue, that she had left me; and it was not until she was a good half mile away from me, with only the sound of her screw ripping the water, and a faint gleam of light from her after ports showing through the darkness, that i realized that she was gone—and then i grew so sick and dizzy that it is a wonder i did not lose my hold altogether and fall off into the sea. somehow or another i managed to swing myself down and to seat myself upon the mast again, with my head fairly splitting and with my heart altogether gone: and so rested there, shutting my eyes to hide the sight of my hope vanishing, and as desolate as any man ever was.
presently, in a dull way, i noticed that i no longer heard the swash of her screw, and rather wondered at her getting out of hearing so quickly; but for fear of still seeing her lights, and so having more pain from her, i still kept my eyes tight closed. and then, all of a sudden, i heard quite close by me a hail—and opened my eyes in a hurry to see a light not a hundred feet away from me, and to make out below it the loom of a boat moving slowly over the weed-strewn sea.
the shout that i gave saved me, but before it saved me i came near to being done for. such a rush of blood went up into my broken head with the sudden burst of joy upon me that a dead faint came upon me and i fell off into the water; and that i was floating when the boat got to me was due to the mere chance that as i dropped away from the mast one of my arms slipped into the tangle of the futtock-shrouds. but i knew nothing about that, nor about anything else that happened, until we were half-way back to the steamer and i came to my senses a little; and very little for a good while longer—except that i was swung up a ship's side and there was a good deal of talking going on around me; and then that my clothes were taken off and i was lifted into a soft delightful berth; and then that somebody with gentle hands was binding up my broken crown.
when this job was finished—which hurt me a good deal, but did not rouse me much—i just fell back upon the soft pillow and went to sleep: with a blessed sense of rest and safety, as i felt the roll of a whole ship under me again after the short jerk of my mast, and knew that i was not back on the brig but aboard an honest steamer by hearing and by feeling the strong steady pulsing of her screw.
