me
to being five days in an open boat, with nothing to eat and only a small
quantity of water to assuage your burning thirst with at stated
intervals, exposed all the time, too, to rough seas breaking over you--
encrusting your hair and skin and everything with salt that blistered
you when the sun came out afterwards, as it did, roasting us almost as
soon as the gale lessened--why it was a painful ordeal, that's all! The
rum did not last out long; and soon after the final drop of this was
served out, the captain succumbed to weakness, having been dying by
inches, and the stimulant only sustaining him so long. We kept him a
couple of days, and then flung the body overboard, along with those of
two other men who had died in the meantime from exposure and want of
food; thus, only three others were now left in the jolly-boat besides
me."

"And then?" interrupted Fritz anxiously.

"I don't know what happened afterwards," said Eric. "I got delirious, I
suppose, for I remember fancying myself at home again in Lubeck, with
Lorischen bending over me and offering me all sorts of nice things to
eat! Really, I do not recollect anything further as to what occurred in
the boat."

"How were you saved, then?" asked Fritz.

"It was that good Captain Brown there, talking to the gentleman whom you
came in here with," replied Eric, pointing out the broad-shouldered,
jolly-looking, seafaring man whom Fritz's friend, the deck hand of the
steamer, had accosted and was now conversing with, close to where the
two brothers were seated on the divan.

"Oh, he rescued you!" said Fritz, looking at the seafaring man with some
interest. "I should like to thank him."

"Yes; he's a good fellow," Eric went on. "The first thing I saw when in
my right senses again, I think, after we had heaved the bodies of our
dead shipmates overboard the boat, was Captain Brown bending over me. I
must have confused his face with that of Lorischen, whom I had been
dreaming of, for I thought it was hers, and called the captain by her
name."

"You did?"

"Yes; I remember his laughing and saying, `poor little chap,' meaning
me. He took care of me well, though; and it was only through his kind
care that they were able to bring me round again. They told me
afterwards that I was in a most pitiable state of emaciation--a
skeleton, they said, with only fragments of burnt, blistered skin
covering my poor bones!"

"And the others," inquired Fritz,--"did they r