“To die in my coffin, if it should be the will of God,” returned Tom. “These waves, to me, are what the land is to you; I was born on them, and I have always meant that they should be my grave.” “But I--I,” shrieked Dillon, “I am not ready to die!--I cannot die!--I will not die!” “Poor wretch!” muttered his companion; “you must go, like the rest of us; when the death-watch is called, none can skulk from the muster.” “I can swim,” Dillon continued, rushing with frantic eagerness to the side of the wreck. “Is there no billet of wood, no rope, that I can take with me?” “None; everything has been cut away, or carried off by the sea. If ye are about to strive for your life, take with ye a stout heart and a clean conscience, and trust the rest to God!” “God!” echoed Dillon, in the madness of his frenzy; “I know no God! there is no God that knows me!” “Peace!” said the deep tones of the cockswain, in a voice that seemed to speak in the elements; “blasphemer, peace!” The heavy groaning, produced by the water in the timbers of the Ariel, at that moment added its impulse to the raging feelings of Dillon, and he cast himself headlong into the sea. The water, thrown by the rolling of the surf on the beach, was necessarily returned to the ocean, in eddies, in different places favorable to such an action of the element. Into the edge of one of these countercurrents, that was produced by the very rocks on which the schooner lay, and which the watermen call the “undertow,” Dillon had, unknowingly, thrown his person; and when the waves had driven him a short distance from the wreck, he was met by a stream that his most desperate efforts could not overcome. He was a light and powerful swimmer, and the struggle was hard and protracted. With the shore immediately before his eyes, and at no great distance, he was led, as by a false phantom, to continue his efforts, although they did not advance him a foot. The old seaman, who at first had watched his motions with careless indifference, understood the danger of his situation at a glance; and, forgetful of his own fate, he shouted aloud, in a voice that was driven over the struggling victim to the ears of his shipmates on the sands: “Sheer to port, and clear the undertow! Sheer to the southward!”