eyed. She felt herself lurch as if to fall, and then
hands caught and supported her as she stood on something that swayed.
The voice that had before spoken was advising her to sit down and take
it easy. Accordingly, she sat down. Her seat was rocking like a swing,
and she heard dimly the splash of waters; these merged unaccountably
again into the purring of a motor....

And then somebody had an arm round her waist and she was walking,
bearing heavily upon that support, partly because she sorely needed it
but the more readily because she knew somehow--intuitively--that the arm
was a woman's. A voice assured her from time to time: "Not much
farther ..." And she was sure it was a woman's voice.... Then she was
being helped to ascend a steep, long staircase....

She came to herself for a moment, probably not long after climbing the
stairs. She was sitting on the edge of a bed in a small, low-ceiled
room, cheaply and meagrely furnished. Staring wildly about her, she
tried to realise these surroundings. There were two windows, both open,
admitting floods of sea air and sunlight; beyond them she saw green
boughs swaying slowly, and through the boughs patches of water, blue and
gold. There was a door opposite the bed; it stood open, revealing a
vista of long, bare hallway, regularly punctuated by doors.

The drumming in her temples pained and bewildered her. Her head felt
dense and heavy. She tried to think and failed. But the knowledge
persisted that something was very wrong with her world--something that
might be remedied, set right, if only she could muster up strength to
move and ... think.

Abruptly the doorway was filled by the figure of a woman, a strapping,
brawny creature with the arms and shoulders of a man and a great,
coarse, good-natured face. She came directly to the bed, sat down beside
the girl, passed an arm behind her shoulders and offered her a glass.

"You've just woke up, ain't you?" she said soothingly. "Drink this and
lay down and you'll feel better before long. You have had a turn, and no
mistake; but you'll be all right now, never fear. Come now, drink it,
and I'll help you loose your clothes a bit, so 's you can be
comfortable...."

Somehow her tone inspired Eleanor with confidence. She drank, submitted
to being partially undressed, and lay down. Sleep overcame her
immediately: she suffered a sensation of dropping plummet-wise into a
great pit of oblivion....

XIII

WRECK ISLAND

Su