a whisper.

Then the words were repeated, and he lay perfectly still with his eyes
close shut, thinking in a dreamy way that it would be wise to drink a
glass of water and open a window to let in the air, for it must be a hot
morning down in his old Devonshire home with the sun shining through
upon his bed.

Then all at once he opened his eyes and lay looking down at something
upon the floor--something lying in the full glow of the ruddy sunshine
which came through the round plate glass of the port-hole, and he was
still so much asleep that he was puzzled to make out what it meant.

By degrees he grasped faintly that it was a man fast asleep, and making
a gurgling noise as he breathed, but he could not make out why that man
should be asleep on the floor of his bed-room in Devonshire, down there
at Dawlish where the blue sea washed against the red rocks.

It was very puzzling and confusing, and when for the third time he felt
that he was saying that he was so hot and so thirsty he uttered a sigh
and said to himself that he must get up and drink a glass of water and
open his bed-room window, before lying down again.

This thought roused him a little from his deep, heavy, stupefied state,
and he had a surprise. For he made an effort to get up, and then felt
startled on realising the fact that he was not lying down, but sitting
in an awkward position, his head hanging back over the side of a chair,
and his neck stiffened and aching.

Then he knew that he was not at home in Devonshire, but in the
state-room of a ship, and that the heat was stifling.

This was enough to rouse him from his state of stupefaction a little
more, and then as he straightened his neck and looked about he fully
awoke with one mental leap.

His first glance was at Carey, who had moved and lay in a different
position, but was quite motionless now.

His next was at the little port-hole window, which he unfastened and
threw open, to feel a puff of soft air and hear the gentle washing of
the ocean, which spread out calm and still like a sea of gold beneath an
orange sky.

It was very calm, just heaving softly, and from a distance came at
intervals the deep booming roar of the breakers on a reef; but there was
hardly a breath of air, for the terrible hurricane had passed.

Stiff and aching from the awkward position in which he had slept, the
doctor crossed to the door and pushed it open wide, with the result that
the suffocating atmosphere o