Page:Barbour--For the freedom from the seas.djvu/141

 flung hand touched something. He drew it back instinctively, conscious of a sudden pain in the numb fingers. Then startled reason sent him swiftly groping, and in that instant he sensed rather than saw something beside him, something huge that flung the waves back in his stinging eyes. His eager fingers touched again, slid along a hard, wet surface that offered no hold, and he threw his head back and shouted with all his strength. And at the same moment his fingers found a hold, a tiny recess in the smooth object that was sliding past him, and they clutched convulsively and he felt himself being dragged forward through the welter of wind and water, his arm straining at its socket and his body pounded against an object as hard and resisting as a block of stone.