It left him stranded like a bug in gelatine. His flesh
crawled at this slimy swimming, he shrank from it, and it sapped his
heart and strength.
The only stroke possible was the overarm, and his hands fell with a
gummy plop instead of the heartsome splash of open water. By the time he
reached his buoy and threw it again, he regretted miserably that he had
not swum the clean water route if it were five miles farther.
By the time he had thrown his buoy twice, he could hardly advance it a
yard beyond his reach; finally it simply slushed along the surface. The
sun seemed much hotter in this congestion than in the open sea.
Behind him came his two men in a queer snakelike procession of plopping
buoys and wriggling bodies. Ahead of them the seaweed stretched,
apparently all the way to the schooner. As they worked their way through
the scum of many seas, the noon sun broiled their backs into thin water
blisters, and stewed saline odors out of the clammy life about them.
Once Madden's hand struck a yellowish line of algae and a score or two
of little jelly-like insects writhed into the grass below. One of these
things touched the swimmer's arm and gave the boy a stinging sensation.
He knocked it off desperately and pushed on.
Presently his shoulder muscles ached and burned so keenly, he could no
longer continue the overarm.
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