your story ever so much better with that before me."
Whereupon the lad entered a state-room at the fore end of the main
cabin, and presently returned with a chart of the Malay Archipelago,
which he spread open on the table.

"There," he said, pointing with his finger, "that's the place they
called at--Waingapu, in Sumba Island; and this pencil-mark Mr Barber
drew to show the track of the ship and the boat afterwards--as nearly as
he could remember. After leaving Waingapu the ship sailed along this
line,"--pointing with his finger--"through Maurissa Strait, up to here.
And here Mr Barber and the Dutch captain had a terrible quarrel and a
fight--I don't know what about, because Mr Barber didn't say, but it
ended in Mr Barber being turned adrift by himself in a boat, with a
small stock of provisions and one breaker of fresh water. The boat was
an old one, very leaky, and she had no sail, so Mr Barber could do
nothing but just let her drift, hoping every day that something would
come along and pick him up. But nothing came, and five days later he
found that his water was all gone, the breaker havin' been leaky. The
next thing that happened was that Mr Barker got light-headed with
thirst; and it used to make me feel awfully uncomfortable to hear him
tell about the things he thought he saw while he was that way. At last
he got so thirsty that he couldn't stand it any longer, and, bein' mad,
he filled the baler with water from over the side, and drank it. And
then he found that the water was _fresh_, and he drank some more, and
his senses came back to him, and, lookin' round, he saw that there was
land on both sides of the boat and that she was in a sort of wide river.
But, although the land was so plain in sight, Mr Barber was so weak
that he couldn't do anything; for while he was light-headed he'd hove
all his grub overboard and was now starving. So he just had to let the
boat drift with the wind; and after a bit she drove ashore. But even
then Mr Barber couldn't do anything but just climb out of the boat and
fling himself down upon the sand, where he slept until next morning.

"When he woke up he felt a bit better, but awfully hungry, so he got up
and, seeing a few trees not far off, he managed to crawl over to 'em,
and was lucky enough to find some fruit on 'em. He said he didn't know
what the fruit was, and didn't care, he was so awfully hungry that he'd
have eaten it, even if he'd known it was poison. But it wa