I felt encouraged by his words and began to swim more calmly.But my clothes stuck to me like a heavy weight.I could hardly stay above the surface. Counsel saw this."Shall I cut them?"he asked. With a knife he cut my clothes from top to bottom and took them of quickly while I swam for both of us. Then I did the same for Counsel,and we continued to swim near each other. But we were in serious trouble.The crew might not have noticed our disappearance. And if they had,they could not return because the rudder had broken.Counsel thought of all this,and calmly made his plans.We decided to wait for the ship as long as possible,because we had no other hope of safety.I suggested that we save our strength so that both of us would not be tired out at the same time.This was how we did it:While one of us lay on his back,quite _ ,with arms crossed and legs stretched out ,the other would swim and push him along.We changed every ten minutes or so.In this way we could swim for hours,perhaps till daylight.The crash of the ship and the whale had appeared at about eleven o'clock.We had about eight hours to swim before daylight.This seemed possible,if the sea remained calm. What happened to the man who told the story?
He and his companion got into the water to test their strength. He jumped into the water to save the broken rudder. He was knocked into the water by his enemy. He was thrown into the sea when the ship struck a whale.