ndictive roll of the vessel, and Thomas
descended to the scuppers like another Icarus.

Ah! blessed sight! The boat, the good, friendly faces of the seamen; and
there, in the stern sheets, the pallid, spiritual face of Henry
Fullerton, looking, as Ferrier thought, like a vision from a stormless
world of beatified souls.

"Two of you men must come and help to lug my patient up."

Could you only have seen that gallant simpleton's endurance of grinding
pain, and his efforts to suppress his groans, you would have had many
strange and perhaps tender thoughts. Mr. Blair was watching the
operations from the yacht, and he said--

"Yes, Lennard, the doctor is right; we need a hospital here. Look at
that poor bundle of agonies coming over the side. How easy it would be
to spare him if we only had the rudiments of proper apparatus here! Yes,
we must have a hospital."

Tom answered: "Yes, and look at the one with the head broken. He'll
suffer a bit when he jumps."

And indeed he did, but he bore the jar like the Trojan that he was--the
good, simple sea-dog.

"Hurry away now, all. I wouldn't give the poor old _Belle_ another
half-hour," said the mate.

In a minute or two the cripples were safe, and Ferrier was in the power
of Blair and Lennard, who threatened to pull his bruised arms away. The
two gentlemen pretended to be in an uproarious state of jollity, and to
hear them trying to say, "Ha! ha!" like veritable war-horses, while the
tears rolled down their cheeks, was a very instructive experience.

And now I must speak of a matter which may possibly offend the finer
instincts of a truly moral age. Mrs. Walton totally forgot matronly
reserve; she stepped up to Mr. Ferrier, and, saying, "My brave fellow"
(it is a wicked world, and I must speak truth about it)--yes, she said,
"My brave fellow!" and then she kissed him! Blair's sister, Mrs.
Hellier, was more Scotch in accent than her brother, and she crowned the
improprieties of this most remarkable meeting by giving the modest young
savant _two_ kisses--I am accurate as to the number--and saying, "My
bonny lad, you needn't mind me; I have three sons as big as yourself."
Then the battered hero was welcomed by two joyous girls, and the young
Scotch niece said, "We fairly thought you were gone, Mr. Ferrier, and
all of us cried, and Miss Dearsley worst of all." Half dazed, starving,
weary to the edge of paralysis, the young doctor staggered below, ate
cautiously a little brea