Read "The Death Ship, Volume I" by W. Clark Russell online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
I rose to the surface from a deep plunge, but being a very indifferent swimmer it was as much as I could do -- clothed as I was -- to keep myself afloat by battling with my hands. I heard the rippling of the water about my ears, and I felt a deep despair settle upon my spirits, for I knew that the air that blew would carry my ship away from me and that I must speedily drown.
Indeed, to the first impulse of wind the Saracen had moved and I could see her, a great shadow, drawing away with the _corpus sant_, that a minute before had sparkled on her mainmast, now shining on her fore-topsail yard-arm. I had not the least doubt that, in the noise of the shooting, and amid the general alarm excited by the approach of the boat, neither the splash I had made in striking the water nor my disappearance had been noticed, and I remember thinking with the swiftness peculiar to persons in my situation -- for as Cowper says --