Page:Barbour--For the freedom from the seas.djvu/143

 gers into the narrow crevice and dropped the other away, numb and aching. This brought his face to the hull and turned his body so that it lay closer to the steel plates and was less buffeted. And the position raised his head further so that his breathing periods were more frequent. When his head was above water he shouted, but he began to lose hope now, for in that confused roar of wind and water his cries were scarcely audible to him. His hold was precarious and more than once he felt his fingers slipping away. Then, by every effort of weary muscles, pushing against the smooth surface with his left hand, he regained his hold. During one such struggle, with head thrown back and for the instant above the waves, he blinked the water from his eyes and tried to pierce the darkness and glimpse the rail far above him. It must have been some sense other than sight that told him the truth, for no gloom was ever more impenetrable and even the hand that protected his face from the hull was beyond his vision. But, looking up, he suddenly realized that there were no towering sides above him, that it was not a cruiser or destroyer he was clinging to, but a submarine!

And then something that had puzzled him dimly was explained. In groping along the hull he had 118