take the punishment he deserved than the creeping, cringing and whining being who begged for mercy? Would God the Creator be more unreasonable about the matter than I, whom He had created? I had always thanked God as well as my parents for the extraordinary physical strength and courage with which I was endowed, and during my life of trials and hardships that courage had never been shaken by man or beast, but now I felt that the crucial test was about to be applied. Would the courage the Almighty gave me weaken when about to face Him who had bestowed it upon me? With these and similar thoughts passing through my mind and my strength exhausted, I took one long breath and sank beneath the water. CHAPTER IV Sinking slowly down with a feeling of drowsiness stealing away my senses, I was suddenly awakened by my body coming to an abrupt stop and resting upon some hard substance. My first impression was that I had collided with some huge sea-monster and was about to be devoured. So placing my hands and feet firmly upon it I sprang upward with all the force I could command in an effort to get out of its reach, but to my great surprise my head and half of my body shot out of the water into the air above and down I came again square upon my feet with a jolt that caused my teeth to rattle. And there I stood with my head and shoulders out of the water while my lungs inhaled long draughts of pure fresh air. I was too astonished to think and too weak to move, so I just stood there motionless until I had regained my equilibrium. I could never forget how sweet life seemed to me at that time. For a long time I remained standing there without giving a thought as to what I was resting upon, and when I did direct my attention to the question I was incapable of forming a satisfactory solution to the mystery. According to the charts there was no land in that part of the ocean. Could it be a whale, I wondered? The more I thought of it the more perplexed I became. The night was very dark and I could see nothing about me in any direction, so I concluded that the only thing to do was to remain standing just where I was until daybreak. It was a long and tedious wait and I suffered much from stiffness and cold, but at last dawn appeared and I anxiously strained my eyes, looking about in every direction. Then my head nearly burst with a feeling of joyousness, for within two hundred yards of me I discerned the outline of what appeared to be a hill of rocks protruding from the deep, and as the light grew brighter I started to wade slowly towards it. This was an extremely tiresome undertaking, as the bed upon which I had been resting was very rocky and uneven and I received many bruises before finally reaching its base. My limbs too were thoroughly numb and almost refused to work, but with each step ahead the water became shallower and my progress less arduous. As I went forward I thought it was by the miraculous hand of God that my life