For the first time in Tom Slade's life a sensation of utter despair gripped him and it was not until several seconds had elapsed, while he was tossed at the mercy of the storm, that he was able to get a grip on himself. He struck out frantically and for just a brief minute was guilty of a failing which he had never yielded to--the perilous weakness of being rattled and hitting hard at nothing. In swimming, above all things, this is futile and dangerous, and presently Tom regained his mental poise and struck out calmly, swimming in the direction in which the wind bore him, for there was nothing else to do. Not that his effort helped him much, but he knew the good rule that one should never be passive in a crisis, for inaction is as depressing to the spirit as frantic exertion is to the body. And he knew that by swimming he could keep his "morale"--a word which he had heard a good deal lately. His heart was sick within him and a kind of cold desperation seized him. Archer, whom he had known away back home in America, whom he had found by chance in the German prison camp, who had trudged over the hills and through the woods with him, was lost. He would never see him again. Archer, who was always after souvenirs.... These were not thoughts exactly, but they flitted through Tom's consciousness as he struggled to keep his head clear of the tempestuous waters. And even in his own desperate plight he recalled that their last words had been words of discord, for he knew now (generous as he was) that _he_ was to blame for this dreadful end of all their fine hopes--that Archer had been right--they should have stayed at Melotte's hovel. Amid the swirl of the waters, as he swam he knew not where, he remembered how Archer had said he ought to think of his duty to Uncle Sam and not imperil his chance to help by going after Florette Leteur. He was sick, utterly sick, and nearer to hopelessness than he had ever been in his life; but he struck out in a kind of mechanical resignation, believing that the wind and the trend of the water must bring him to one shore or the other before he was exhausted. There was no light anywhere, no clew or beacon of any sort in that wild blackness, and since he therefore had no reason to oppose his strength to the force of the storm he swam steadily in the direction in which it carried him. It made no difference. Nothing mattered now.... After a while the noise of the lashing changed to that lapping sound which only contact with the land can give, and soon Tom could distinguish a solid mass outlined in the hollow blackness of the night. He had no guess whether it was the Baden or the Alsatian shore that he was approaching nor how far north or south he had been carried. Nor did he much care.