come ashore
didn't he feel so desperate lonesome that he died o' too much rum inside
the year, down on the land-wash wid his two feet in the sea?"

"Aye, Pat," returned Tim, "but I bain't sayin' as this one bes a
mermaid. She was lashed to the cross-trees like any human."

"An' that would be a mermaid's trick," retorted the other. "Where be the
other poor humans, then?"

At that moment the skipper approached.

"Mind the wrack, men," said he. "Make fast some more lines to her, if ye
kin. I'll be back wid ye afore long."

The hammock was swung on a pole. Four men and the skipper accompanied
the girl from the wreck, two carrying the hammock for the first half of
the journey and the relay shouldering it for the second spell. The
skipper walked alongside. The girl lay back among the blankets, which
had been dried at the fire, silent and with her eyes closed for the most
part. It was evident that her terrible experience had sapped both her
physical and mental vitality. She had been lashed to the cross-trees of
the foremast soon after the ship had struck the rocks, and fully eight
hours before Black Dennis Nolan had released her. The second mate, who
had carried her up and lashed her there, had been flung to his death by
the whipping of the mast a moment after he had made the last loop fast
about her blanketed form. She had been drenched and chilled by the
flying spume and the spray that burst upward and outward from the foot
of the cliff. The wind had snatched the breath from her lips, deafened
her, blinded her, and driven the cold to her very bones. The swaying and
leaping of the spar had at last jarred and wrenched her to a state of
insensibility.

She spoke only three times during the journey.

"I would have died if I had been left there a little longer. You were
brave to save me as you did. What is your name?"

"Aye, 'twas a terrible place for ye," replied the skipper. "I bes Dennis
Nolan, skipper o' Chance Along; an' now I bes takin' ye to my granny,
Mother Nolan, an' a grand, warm house. Ye'll have Father McQueen's own
bed, for he bes away till June, an' a fire in the chimley all day."

Her only answer was to gaze at him with a look of calm, faint interest
for a moment and then close her eyes. Ten minutes later she spoke again.

"The _Royal William_ was bound for New York," she said. "There were ten
passengers aboard her. My maid was with me--a Frenchwoman."

This was Greek to the skipper, and he mumbled an