He ached all
over. He felt it was the end; it was approaching dissolution.

"My inside--my stomach. I'm dying!" he managed to gasp.

Little Billy's elfish grin grew wider. The wretch even chuckled as he
contemplated Martin's misery.

"Oh, that is nothing," Martin heard him say. "Just a little bout with
our old friend Mister Mal de Mer. You'll be all right once you get on
your feet and get some warm food inside of you. How is the head?"

The mention of food was nauseous, but the remark anent the head
acquainted him with a new ill. He touched the place where his hair
should have been, and instead of hair his hand caressed a bandage. He
discovered that beneath the bandage was the seat of the throbbing pain
that bothered him. Also, memory began to stir in the chaos of his
mind--head bandaged, street fight, Black Cruiser, shots.

"What--what," he stuttered.

"You were shot," little Billy replied to that interrogatory stare.
"The bosun picked you up and carried you to the boat, and we brought
you aboard with us. You were creased. The narrowest squeak I ever
saw. The bullet just plowed over your skull. We thought at first you
were gone--fractured skull, you know--but you came out of your trance
and fell asleep. You have been lying in that bunk for about fifteen
hours. It is midafternoon now, and we have been to sea since midnight."

"T-to sea!" gasped Martin.

The hunchback's matter-of-fact announcement fairly took his breath.
The latter's chuckle became more pronounced at Martin's blank amazement.

"Yes, my legal friend, you have invaded the troublous domains of old
King Nep.," he continued genially. "As the bosun remarked this
morning, when a few playful tons of H2O rolled him along the main deck,
''Ere we are, swiggle me stiff, safe and sound at sea again!'" Little
Billy struck an oratorical pose, and declaimed musically:

"O, we're running free with a gale abaft,
And we're bound for the End o' the World!"

"But--why did you bring--" mumbled Martin.

"We had to fetch you along," interrupted Little Billy. "If the bosun
had left you behind, those yellow devils would have finished you, or
else the police would have nabbed you. The police were at our heels
when we made the getaway from the wharf, as it was. By Jove! It was
for your own benefit we shanghaied you--you realize, don't you, that a
street fight with guns in a civilized town like Frisco, with wounded,
perhaps dead, men lying