Commodore Junk — page 273: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

266 COMMODORE JUNK. directions, and the silence, for what seemed quite a long space, was awiul. It was, however, but a few instants, and then there was a terrific splashing as if a number of horrible creatures had rushed to prey upon the fallen man, whose shrieks for help began once more, Appeals, curses, yells, piteous wails, followed each other in rapid succession as the water was beaten heavily. Then the cries were smothered, there was a gurling sound, and the water whispered and lapped and echoed as it seemed to play against the stony walls of the place. A few moments and the cries recommenced, and between every cry there was the hoarse panting of a swimmer fighting hard for his life as he struck out. The buccaneer’s eyes stared wildly down into the great cenote, or water-tank, whose vast proportions were hidden in the gloom. He could see nothing; but his imagination sup- plied the vacancy, and pictured before him the head and shoulders of his treacherous follower as he swam along the sides of the great gulf, striving to find a place to climb up; and this he did, for the hoarse panting and the cries ceased, and from the dripping and splashing it was evident that he had found some inequality in the wall, by means of which he climbed, with the water streaming from him. The task was laborious, but he drew himself up and up, ‘climbing slowly, and then he suddenly ceased, uttered a terrible cry, and once more there was a splash, the lapping and whispering of the water, and silence. He was at the surface again, swimming hard in the dark- ness and striving once more to reach the place where he had climbed ; but in the darkness he swain in quite a differcnt direction, and his hoarse panting rose again, quick and agitated now, the strokes were taken more rapidly, and like a rat drowning in a tub of water, the miserable wretch toiled on, Gomicbooks —