And the mysterious schooner, with
its lights and shadows exaggerated in the tropical glare, seemed to the
tired swimmers to be as remote as ever.
As Madden pressed on and on, changing strokes after the fashion of
tiring swimmers, the constant beat of the sun made his eyeballs ache;
the ocean felt like a Turkish bath; the muscles in his shoulders, back
and legs grew numb, with an occasional cramping twinge. And what
irritated him as much as anything else was the fact that he was swimming
toward the right quarter of the schooner, throwing away his energy.
Just then Caradoc gave a distant call, "To the left."
With deep relief, Madden rounded back toward his goal. He had swung
about some unseen cape of algae. He looked back toward the dock. Hogan,
a very tiny figure, held his flag straight up; that meant "dead ahead."
In relief Madden turned over on his back, laid his hat across his face,
then with hands resting on chest, he began sculling along with knees and
feet.
He did not know how long he swam in this fashion. Queer ideas drifted
through the lad's mind. He recalled standing on the bridge of the dock
as it went out of the Thames and wondering what would happen. He had
never anticipated anything like this. It seemed that he had been
swimming for days and weeks.
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