“I am lost!”
But, desperate as his position was, he was not the man to give up.
Gathering, by one supreme effort, all his strength and energy, he took
hold of the boat, that had turned over just above him, and pushed it so
forcibly, that he loosened his foot, and at the same moment reached the
surface. It was high time; for Daniel had swallowed much water.
“Now,” he thought, “I have a chance to escape!”
A very frail chance, alas!--so small a chance, in fact, that it required
all the strong will and the invincible courage of Daniel to give it
any effect. A furious current carried him down like a straw; the little
boat, which might have supported him, had disappeared; and he knew
nothing about this formidable Dong-Nai, except that it went on widening
to its mouth. There was nothing to guide him; for the night was so dark,
that land and water, the river and its banks, all melted together in the
uniform, bottomless darkness.