And not far away, cast up on the strand even as I had been,
was--Marakinoff!
He lay there, broken and dead indeed. Yet all the waters through
which we had passed--not even the waters of death themselves--could
wash from his face the grin of triumph. With the last of my strength I
dragged the body from the strand and pushed it out into the waves. A
little billow ran up, coiled about it, and carried it away, ducking
and bending. Another seized it, and another, playing with it. It
floated from my sight--that which had been Marakinoff, with all his
schemes to turn our fair world into an undreamed-of-hell.
My strength began to come back to me. I found a thicket and slept;
slept it must have been for many hours, for when I again awakened the
dawn was rosing the east. I will not tell my sufferings. Suffice it to
say that I found a spring and some fruit, and just before dusk had
recovered enough to writhe up to the top of the wall and discover
where I was.
The place was one of the farther islets of the Nan-Matal.
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