ained. But gradually our lads drove their
antagonists back until the latter were all grouped together in a dense
mass round the mainmast, with our people hemming them in on every side
and pressing them into such a compact crowd that at least half of them
were unable to strike an effective blow. They did what they could,
however, by hurling their empty pistols into our faces over the heads of
their comrades, and I was busily engaged in defending myself from the
attack of a herculean negro when one of these heavy missiles struck me,
the hammer taking me fairly in the centre of the forehead and so nearly
stunning me that for a moment I all but lost consciousness and was
completely thrown off my guard. The next second a terrific blow crashed
down upon my bare head--my hat having been lost earlier in the melee--
and I fell to the deck, my last conscious sensation being that I was
being trampled upon and by, as it seemed to me, an innumerable crowd of
people. Then I swooned.

When I recovered consciousness I found myself in my hammock, in the
sick-bay aboard the frigate, with a number of companions in misfortune
around me. At first I felt too utterly miserable to take much interest
in anything, for my head, swathed in bandages, was aching and smarting
so consumedly that for the first quarter of an hour or so I could not
bear even the subdued light that entered through the open ports, and was
obliged to keep my eyes closed; moreover, I was parched and burnt-up
with fever, as weak as a cat, and consumed with an intolerable thirst.
I attempted to turn in my hammock, but was unable to do so, and as I
still struggled one of the sick-bay attendants came to my side and asked
if he could do anything for me. I gasped out something to the effect
that I was perishing of thirst, whereupon he brought me a pannikin of
tepid water, dipped from a bucket that stood near one of the open ports,
and, raising me in my hammock, placed it to my lips. Tepid and insipid
as it actually was, I thought I had never tasted anything half so
delicious, and I not only drained it to the last drop, but asked for
more. This, however, he declined to give me without the surgeon's
direct permission, having, as he explained to me, been warned that when
I awoke I should probably be suffering severely from thirst, but that I
was only to be given a very limited quantity of liquid at the outset and
until the surgeon had had an opportunity to examine further into