o the nurse
who was feeding me, and sharply demanded what it was that she was
administering. She explained, adding in all seriousness the information
that I had demanded a bucketful, whereupon he turned and regarded me
with upraised eyebrows, and laid his fingers upon my wrist.

"So you are suffering from extreme thirst, Captain, eh?" he demanded.

I nodded emphatically.

"Ah!" he said, "yes; that was only to be expected. Well--" He turned to
the head nurse and gave her certain instructions in so low a tone of
voice that I could not catch what he said. Then, drawing a notebook
from his pocket, he very carefully and with much consideration wrote
what I imagined to be a prescription, tore out the leaf, and handed it
to the nurse, with instructions to have it made up. Then, turning again
to me, he inquired how I felt. I described my symptoms as well as I
could, wondering all the while how it was that I was only able to speak
in the merest whisper.

The members of the staff, including the Head himself, could not have
listened with more rapt attention, had I been communicating to them some
item of intelligence of the most tremendous import; and when I had
finished, the Head drew away from my bed to the far end of the room,
where for some minutes he appeared to be delivering a lecture to the
members of his staff, who had followed him. Then, the lecture being
finished, they all came back to the side of my bed, and one of the
nurses having carefully folded back the covering as low as my waist, the
Head proceeded to deftly loosen the fastenings of an enormous bandage
which I now discovered enveloped my chest. This done, I was very
tenderly raised to a sitting posture--an operation which gave me
excruciating pain, by the way--and the endless turns of the bandage were
deftly unwound, one of the nurses seating herself upon the bed and
supporting me meanwhile. When at length the bandage was removed,
several broad strips of dressing were disclosed, which, upon removal,
revealed a ghastly great jagged wound stretching right across my chest,
the edges of which had been very neatly drawn together by a number of
stitches. Then, for the first time, I remembered the violent blow on
the chest which I had received when the bows of the _Kasanumi_ were
destroyed. The wound was intently examined by the entire staff,
pronounced to be healing most satisfactorily, and then, after being
thoroughly sponged with warm water, was re-dress