I had another squint to see if
anything was visible of the canoes and boats, and then kept on. I stopped
with my head a foot from the surface, and tried to see where I was going,
but, of course, nothing was to be seen but the reflection of the bottom.
Then out I dashed, like knocking my head through a mirror. Directly I got
my eyes out of the water, I saw I'd come up a kind of beach near the
forest. I had a look round, but the natives and the brig were both hidden
by a big hummucky heap of twisted lava. The born fool in me suggested a
run for the woods. I didn't take the helmet off, but I eased open one of
the windows, and, after a bit of a pant, went on out of the water. You'd
hardly imagine how clean and light the air tasted.
"Of course, with four inches of lead in your boot soles, and your head in
a copper knob the size of a football, and been thirty-five minutes under
water, you don't break any records running. I ran like a ploughboy going
to work. And half-way to the trees I saw a dozen niggers or more, coming
out in a gaping, astonished sort of way to meet me.
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