s.

He looked about him languidly at first, but this feeling was succeeded
by the wildest amazement, as his eyes took in his unusual
surroundings.

He had gone to sleep on a bed--he found himself on awakening in a
ship's bunk.

He half arose in his birth, but the motion of the vessel and a slight
feeling of dizziness compelled him to resume a recumbent position.

"I must be dreaming," thought Dodger. "It's very queer. I am dreaming
I am at sea. I suppose that explains it."

He listened and heard the swish of the waters as they beat against the
sides of the vessel.

He noted the pitching of the ship, and there was an unsteady feeling
in his head, such as those who have gone to sea will readily recall.

Dodger became more and more bewildered.

"If it's a dream, it's the most real dream I ever had," he said to
himself.

"This seems like a ship's cabin," he continued, looking about him. "I
think if I got up I should be seasick. I wonder if people ever get
seasick in dreams?"

There was another pitch, and Dodger instinctively clung to the edge of
his berth, to save himself from being thrown out.

"Let me see," he said, trying to collect his scattered recollection.
"I went to sleep in a house uptown--a house to which Curtis Waring
lured me, and then made me a prisoner. The house was somewhere near
One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street. Now it seems as if I was on board
a ship. How could I get here? I wish somebody would come in that I
could ask."

As no one came in, Dodger got out of the berth, and tried to stand on
the cabin floor.

But before he knew it he was staggering like one intoxicated, and his
head began to feel bad, partly, no doubt, on account of the sleeping
potion which he had unconsciously taken.

At this moment the steward entered the cabin. "Hello, young man! Have
you got up?" he asked.

"Where am I?" asked Dodger, looking at him with a dazed expression.

"Where are you? You're on the good ship _Columbia_, to be sure?"

"Are we out to sea?"

"Of course you are."

"How far from land?"

"Well, about fifty miles, more or less, I should judge."

"How long have I been here?"

"It seems to me you have a poor memory. You came on board last
evening."

"I suppose Curtis Waring brought me," said Dodger, beginning to get
his bearings.

"There was a gentleman came with you--so the mate told me. I don't
know his name."

"Where is the ship bound?"

"To San Francisco, around Cape Horn. I s