CRUSOE IN SAFETY. 97
returned again immediately, I must have been strangled in the
water; but I recovered a little before the return of the waves,
and seeing I should be covered again with the water, I resolved
to hold fast by a piece of the rock, and so to hold my breath, if
possible, till the wave went back. Now as the waves were not
so high as at first, being near land, I held my hold till the wave
abated, and then fetched another run, which brought me so near
the shore, that the next wave, though it went over me, yet did not
so swallow me up as to carry me away; and the next run I took I
got to the mainland, where, to my great comfort, I clambered up
the cliffs of the shore and sat me down upon the grass, free from
danger, and quite out of the reach of the water.

 
  

  

area RS

 

W WAS now landed, and safe on shore, and began
f to look up and thank God that my life was
saved in a case wherein there was some minutes
| before scarce any room to hope. I believe it
is impossible to express to the life what the
ecstasies and transports of the soul are when
it is so saved, as I may say, out of the very
grave; and I do not wonder now at that custom, namely, that
when a malefactor, who has the halter about his neck, is tied up,
and just going to be turned off, and has a reprieve brought to him
—I say, I do not wonder that they bring a surgeon with it, to let
him bleed that very moment they tell him of it, that the surprise
may not drive the animal spirits from the heart and overwhelm
him:
“For sudden joys, like griefs, confound at first.”

I walked about on the shore lifting up my hands, and my whole
being, as I may say, wrapped up in the contemplation ot my
deliverance, making a thousand gestures and motions which I