Part 7 Summary

When the correspondent finally wakes, he realizes that the gray sky means that dawn is breaking. The correspondent sees some houses and a windmill on shore, but there is no sight of any people. The captain decides that since no help is in sight, they might as well make a break for it. It is their last chance. They turned the boat toward the shore.

The correspondent thinks that nature is not trying to be especially cruel, just indifferent. These men are nothing in the magnitude of all of nature, yet he still recounts his life in his mind and his code of right and wrong and how, if given another chance, he would make a better go of it.

The captain interrupts his reverie by telling the men the boat will surely swamp. Their only chance will be to jump from the...