The ebb-tide was nearly finished; and this was one of the banks which never showed itself above water, except during the full and change of the moon.

It was now about nine o'clock in the morning, and the sun shone with great power.

Newton, faint from want of sustenance, hardly knew whether to consider this temporary respite as an advantage.

He knew that the tide would soon flow again, and he felt that his strength was too much spent to enable him to swim back to the islet which he had missed when he had attempted to reach it, and which was more than two miles from the bank upon which he then stood.

What chance had he, then, but to be swept away by the return of the tide?
He almost regretted that it had not been a shark instead of the sand-bank which had struck him; he would then have been spared a few hours of protracted misery.
As Newton had foreseen, the ebb-tide was soon over; a short pause of "slack water" ensued, and there was an evident and rapid increase of the water around him: the wind, too, freshened, and the surface of the ocean was in strong ripples.