I could not stand upon my feet, much
less walk. My clammy, muddy garments clung to me like sheets of
ice. I thought I should never get them off. So numb and lifeless
were my fingers, and so weak was I, that it seemed to take an hour
to get off my shoes. I had not the strength to break the porpoise-
hide laces, and the knots defied me. I repeatedly beat my hands
upon the rocks to get some sort of life into them. Sometimes I
felt sure I was going to die.
But in the end,--after several centuries, it seemed to me,--I got
off the last of my clothes. The water was now close at hand, and I
crawled painfully into it and washed the mud from my naked body.
Still, I could not get on my feet and walk and I was afraid to lie
still. Nothing remained but to crawl weakly, like a snail, and at
the cost of constant pain, up and down the sand. I kept this up as
long as possible, but as the east paled with the coming of dawn I
began to succumb. The sky grew rosy-red, and the golden rim of the
sun, showing above the horizon, found me lying helpless and
motionless among the clam-shells.
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