It was a hell-pit of sea water gone mad.
The Petite Jeanne? I don't know. The Heathen told me afterward
that he did not know. She was literally torn apart, ripped wide
open, beaten into a pulp, smashed into kindling wood,
annihilated. When I came to, I was in the water, swimming
automatically, though I was about two-thirds drowned. How I got
there I had no recollection. I remembered seeing the Petite
Jeanne fly to pieces at what must have been the instant that my
own consciousness was buffeted out of me. But there I was, with
nothing to do but make the best of it, and in that best there was
little promise. The wind was blowing again, the sea was much
smaller and more regular, and I knew that I had passed through
the center. Fortunately, there were no sharks about. The
hurricane had dissipated the ravenous horde that had surrounded
the death ship.
It was about midday when the Petite Jeanne went to pieces, and it
must have been two hours afterward when I picked up with one of
her hatch-covers. Thick rain was driving at the time, and it was
the merest chance that flung me and the hatch-cover together. A
short length of line was trailing from the rope handle, and I
knew that I was good for a day at least, if the sharks did not
return.
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