that
was the last they saw of the twoscore men that but a little moment
before had been full of life and vigor.

This much I heard the sailor tell, and then stopped him, for he was
tired. The woman still sleeps and has showed no signs of consciousness.

March 14.--The sailor, whose name is Richard Jones, was able to crawl
out on deck this morning. He completed his story. The young woman, he
said, was the only passenger on the _Vulture_. He did not know her name.
It had been talked among the crew that she was going out to her lover,
an officer in the Indian Army who had been wounded; that she would not
wait for the regular East Indiaman, but had managed to secure passage on
the _Vulture_. When she realized that she and the sailor, Jones, were
the only ones alive of all those that had been on the vanished ship, and
that they were quite alone on the ocean, in a small boat, without oars,
or sail, or food, or drink, she cried a little and wrung her hands and
became very quiet. She took her place in the bow, and there she sat.
Jones sat in the stern and paddled clear of the wreckage, and then,
using the piece of board for a rudder, kept the boat before the wind.
Luckily there was very little sea. He thought that they were in the
track of Indiamen, and so kept good hope. He tried to encourage the
young woman, but she seemed to prefer silence, and so he kept still.
Thus they drifted. The sun beat down upon their unprotected heads. They
began to want for water. They did not think so much of food as of water.
Jones doesn't know how long they were adrift. He doesn't know when the
girl lost consciousness. He remembers that one day she moaned a little,
and in the night he thought that he heard her whispering to herself. He
thought that she was praying, perhaps. Then he began to lose
consciousness. He remembers seeing a beautiful green field, with trees,
and a brook running through it. He says that men suffering from thirst
on the ocean often have such visions. He remembers nothing else until he
opened his eyes and saw me bending over him.

Uncle John reports no change in the condition of the young woman. She
lies in a stupor, apparently. The pulse daily grows stronger, he says,
and she swallows freely the nourishment administered.

III.

April 2.--It is more than two weeks since I wrote in my journal. I have
been ill--a sort of low fever that kept me in my cabin. Nothing serious,
Uncle John said, and so it has proved, e