For my adventure I wore a blue flannel shirt, dungaree trousers, and my blue cap. I tied my shoes together with a rope yarn, which I slipped baldric-fashion over my shoulder. In the belt at my waist I carried a sailor's sheath knife. With this I had a foolish idea that I might defend myself against sharks. Without attracting attention, I slipped over the bow, climbed down by the bob-stays, and let myself into the sea. I let myself wash silently astern past the ship's side and struck out for shore, swimming on my side without splash or noise, and looking back to watch developments aboard. I am convinced to this day that if I had not been in the water, old Landers would have kept his nose in that magazine for an hour or so and drowsed and nodded over it as I had seen him do dozens of times before. Either my good angel, fearful of the sharks, or my evil genius, malignantly bent upon thwarting me, must have poked the old fellow in the ribs. At any rate, he rose from his chair and stepped to the taff-rail with a pair of binoculars in his hand. He placed the glasses to his eyes and squinted toward the pier to see whether or not the captain had reached shore. I don't know whether he saw the captain or not, but he saw me. "Who's that overboard?" he shouted. I did not answer. Then he recognized me. "Hey, you," he cried, calling me by name, "come back here." I kept on swimming. "Lay aft here, a boat's crew," Mr. Landers sang out. Gabriel and the cooper ran to the quarter-deck and stared at me. The sailors came lounging aft along the rail. Mr. Landers and Gabriel threw the boat's falls from the davit posts. The sailors strung out across the deck to lower the boat. "Lower away," shouted Mr. Landers. One end of the boat went down rapidly. The other end jerked and lurched and seemed to remain almost stationary. I wondered whether my shipmates were bungling purposely. Mr. Landers and Gabriel sprang among them, brushed them aside and lowered the boat themselves. A crew climbed down the brig's side into the boat. Old Gabriel went as boatheader. In a jiffy the sweeps were shot into place, the boat was shoved off, and the chase was on. All this had taken time. As the ship was drifting one way and I was quartering off in an almost opposite direction, I must have been nearly a half mile from the vessel when Gabriel started to run me down. I swam on my side with a long, strong stroke that fast swimmers used to fancy before the Australian crawl came into racing vogue. I was swimming as I never in my life swam before--swimming for liberty. All my hope and heart, as well as all my strength, lay in every stroke. The clear, warm salt water creamed about my head and sometimes over it. I was making time. Swimming on my side, I could see everything that was happening behind me. As the boat came after me I noticed there was but a slight ripple of white water about the prow. Plainly it was not making great speed.