He was going on with his praises, but Strephon bade him stay and look: and so they both perceived a thing which floated, drawing nearer and nearer to the bank; but rather by the favourable working of the sea than by any self-industry. They doubted a while what it should be till it was cast up even hard before them, at which time they fully saw that it was a man. Whereupon running for pity’s sake unto him, they found his hands (as it should appear, constanter friends to his life than his memory) fast gripping upon the edge of a square small coffer which lay all under his breast: else in himself no show of life, so that the board seemed to be but a bier to carry him to land to his sepulchre. So drew they up a young man of goodly shape, and well-pleasing favour, that one would think death had in him a lovely countenance; and that, though he were naked, nakedness was to him an apparel. That sight increased their compassion, and their compassion called up their care; so that lifting his feet above his head, making a great deal of salt water come out of his mouth, {4} they laid him upon some of their garments, and fell to rub and chafe him, till they brought him to recover both breath, the servant, and warmth, the companion, of living. At length opening his eyes, he gave a great groan (a doleful note, but a pleasant ditty, for by that they found not only life but strength of life in him). They therefore continued on their charitable office until, his spirits being well returned, he--without so much as thanking them for their pains--gat up, and looking round about to the uttermost limits of sight, and crying upon the name of Pyrocles, nor seeing nor hearing cause of comfort, “What,” said he, “and shall Musidorus live after Pyrocles’s destruction?” Therewithal he offered wilfully to cast himself again into the sea: a strange sight to the shepherds, to whom it seemed that before being in appearance dead, had yet saved his life, and now coming to his life, should be a cause to procure his death; but they ran unto him, and pulling him back (then too feeble for them) by force stickled that unnatural fray. “I pray you,” said he, “honest men, what such right have you in me, as not to suffer me to do with myself what I list, and what policy have you to bestow a benefit where it is counted an injury?” They hearing him speak in Greek (which was their natural language) became the more tender-hearted towards him, and considering by his calling and looking that the loss of some dear friend was great cause of his sorrow, told him, they were poor men that were bound, by course of humanity, to prevent so great a mischief; and that they wished him, if opinion of some body’s perishing bred such desperate anguish in him, that he should be comforted by his own proof, who had lately escaped as apparent danger as any might be.