A platform of wood was built out from the bank, to be used for bathing by good
swimmers who were not afraid of a plunge into deep water.
And at the first let him practise with helps, as
swimmers do with bladders or rushes; but after a time let him practise with disadvantages, as dancers do with thick shoes.
It passed on, and Berande emerged in the bright sunshine as the three
swimmers emerged from the sea.
It was believed that the search for the bodies had been a fruitless effort merely because the drowning must have occurred in mid- channel, since the boys, being good
swimmers, would otherwise have escaped to shore.
As with mariners shipwrecked near a coast, it would have been better for the good
swimmers if they had been able to swim still further, whereas it would have been better for the bad
swimmers if they had not been able to swim at all and had stuck to the wreck.
Should our bark be upset we are five of us good
swimmers, able enough to turn it over again, or if not, to hold on by it.
That, too, vanished, and Saxon and Billy looked at each other, she with amazement at the
swimmer's valor, Billy with blue eyes flashing.
I was a good
swimmer, and in my inflamed condition the contact of the water with my skin soothed me like cool linen.
And from the opposite bank a sinister ripple, unseen by either man, moving steadily toward the half-naked
swimmer.
The panglima Ninaka of the Signana Dyaks who manned Muda Saffir's war prahu saw his chief disappear beneath the swift waters of the river, but the word of command that would have sent the boat hurriedly back to pick up the
swimmer was not given.
This was an easy feat to him, for he usually attracted a crowd of spectators in the bay before the lighthouse at Marseilles when he swam there, and was unanimously declared to be the best
swimmer in the port.
If so our doom was sealed, for these savages, unlike the feeble
swimmer of civilized countries, are, if anything, more formidable antagonists in the water than when on the land.