breath had risen to
his lips, Allan suddenly sprang up on his knees--sprang up, as if the
call of a trumpet had rung on his ear, awake in an instant.

"You have been dreaming," said Midwinter, as the other looked at him
wildly, in the first bewilderment of waking.

Allan's eyes began to wander about the wreck, at first vacantly,
then with a look of angry surprise. "Are we here still?" he said, as
Midwinter helped him to his feet. "Whatever else I do on board this
infernal ship," he added, after a moment, "I won't go to sleep again!"

As he said those words, his friend's eyes searched his face in silent
inquiry. They took a turn together on the deck.

"Tell me your dream," said Midwinter, with a strange tone of suspicion
in his voice, and a strange appearance of abruptness in his manner.

"I can't tell it yet," returned Allan. "Wait a little till I'm my own
man again."

They took another turn on the deck. Midwinter stopped, and spoke once
more.

"Look at me for a moment, Allan," he said.

There was something of the trouble left by the dream, and something
of natural surprise at the strange request just addressed to him, in
Allan's face, as he turned it full on the speaker; but no shadow of
ill-will, no lurking lines of distrust anywhere. Midwinter turned aside
quickly, and hid, as he best might, an irrepressible outburst of relief.

"Do I look a little upset?" asked Allan, taking his arm, and leading him
on again. "Don't make yourself nervous about me if I do. My head feels
wild and giddy, but I shall soon get over it."

For the next few minutes they walked backward and forward in silence,
the one bent on dismissing the terror of the dream from his thoughts,
the other bent on discovering what the terror of the dream might be.
Relieved of the dread that had oppressed it, the superstitious nature
of Midwinter had leaped to its next conclusion at a bound. What if the
sleeper had been visited by another revelation than the revelation of
the Past? What if the dream had opened those unturned pages in the book
of the Future which told the story of his life to come? The bare
doubt that it might be so strengthened tenfold Midwinter's longing to
penetrate the mystery which Allan's silence still kept a secret from
him.

"Is your head more composed?" he asked. "Can you tell me your dream
now?"

While he put the question, a last memorable moment in the Adventure of
the Wreck was at hand.

They had reached the stern,