All the while , I was being hurled along , and beaten upon and choked , and then swallowed whole ; and the thing was so distracting to my wits , that I was neither sorry nor afraid . Presently , I found I was holding to a spar , which helped me somewhat . And then all of a sudden I was in quiet water , and began to come to myself . It was the spare yard I had got hold of , and I was amazed to see how far I had travelled from the brig. I hailed her , indeed ; but it was plain she was already out of cry . She was still holding together ; but whether or not they had yet launched the boat , I was too far off and too low down to see . While I was hailing the brig , I spied a tract of water lying between us where no great waves came , but which yet boiled white all over and bristled in the moon with rings and bubbles . Sometimes the whole tract swung to one side , like the tail of a live serpent ; sometimes , for a glimpse , it would all disappear and then boil up again . What it was I had no guess , which for the time increased my fear of it ; but I now know it must have been the roost or tide race , which had carried me away so fast and tumbled me about so cruelly , and at last , as if tired of that play , had flung out me and the spare yard upon its landward margin . I now lay quite becalmed , and began to feel that a man can die of cold as well as of drowning . The shores of Earraid were close in ; I could see in the moonlight the dots of heather and the sparkling of the mica in the rocks . `` Well , '' thought I to myself , `` if I can not get as far as that , it 's strange ! '' I had no skill of swimming , Essen Water being small in our neighbourhood ; but when I laid hold upon the yard with both arms , and kicked out with both feet , I soon begun to find that I was moving . Hard work it was , and mortally slow ; but in about an hour of kicking and splashing , I had got well in between the points of a sandy bay surrounded by low hills . The sea was here quite quiet ; there was no sound of any surf ; the moon shone clear ; and I thought in my heart I had never seen a place so desert and desolate . But it was dry land ; and when at last it grew so shallow that I could leave the yard and wade ashore upon my feet , I can not tell if I was more tired or more grateful . Both , at least , I was : tired as I never was before that night ; and grateful to God as I trust I have been often , though never with more cause . CHAPTER XIV THE ISLET With my stepping ashore I began the most unhappy part of my adventures . It was half-past twelve in the morning , and though the wind was broken by the land , it was a cold night . I dared not sit down -LRB- for I thought I should have frozen -RRB- , but took off my shoes and walked to and fro upon the sand , bare-foot , and beating my breast with infinite weariness . There was no sound of man or cattle ; not a cock crew , though it was about the hour of their first waking ; only the surf broke outside in the distance , which put me in mind of my perils and those of my friend .
To walk by the sea at that XXXXX of the morning , and in a place so desert-like and lonesome , struck me with a kind of fear .
Earraid ISLET Water XIV choked fro hour morning night spar