But if I swooned or slept I was roused to consciousness again by the feel of cold water about my legs. I thought I had passed beyond all self-concern, but at the touch of the sea my love of life revived, and I became acutely aware of all that was happening to me. My feet were being fixed to something, and I was being held upright, for I couldn't support myself; not only was I too securely bound to have any control of my limbs, but there was a swaying and lurching beneath me which would have made standing difficult in any case. I began to wonder where I was; but all I could surmise was that I was on an open raft being tossed up and down at sea. Presently the worst of the tossing stopped, and I assumed we had come into quieter water. But why were my feet being fixed to the raft? Why was I being held upright? Then with a deeper dip of the raft I felt a sharp upward jerk beneath my arms; there was a rope fixed about me from somewhere above. But what did it mean? Then the hands that had been supporting me were withdrawn, and I began to sway dizzily; but the rope clutched at me viciously as I fell. For a while I lurched backwards and forwards, my feet fixed to the raft, if raft it were, as it rose and sank with the waves, and the rope catching me with malicious jerks as I toppled and swung. Then suddenly the terrible significance of it all was borne in upon me with a cruel clearness. I seemed to hear my father telling over again that story of dreadful vengeance, the most appalling that the brutal minds of smugglers and pirates could devise; and at the thought of it an agonized cry gushed up from my soul, though not a murmur could pass my lips. For I knew I was hanging between earth and sea, and my fate was to be slowly drawn asunder between them; for as the tide ebbed the raft beneath me would sink and the rope above me would tighten, till gradually my body would be stretched and strained to an agonizing death. The realization came to me with a shock of horror, the more so as my father's vivid story had impressed me with the lingering torment I might expect to suffer. I ceased even to cry out in my heart, "Why, why, why?" as I had done on board ship, exclaiming against the malignant destiny that ever pursued me. For with the fear of such a death upon me I had no place in my mind for anything except the frenzied anticipation of it in all its horror. And still the raft rolled beneath me. I lurched and toppled, while the rope gripped me like a relentless hand which would soon be tightening to drag me limb from limb. Then I felt the sacking over my face being removed, and I caught my first keen whiff of the beautiful sea air. It came like a cruel reminder of all I was about to lose, and once again a spasm of surgent rebellion against my fate convulsed me. The pain of it was dreadful, for still it was as though that violent explosive power were struggling to burst free from within me, but was restrained by an aching pressure at every pore.