esented, that
our people hung in the wind for a moment or two when I ordered them to
jump down into her and pass the bodies up over the side; but they
rallied at once and followed me when I led the way. The skipper and the
doctor were both lying upon their faces, and as I raised the former and
turned him over, it is difficult to say which shocked me most, whether
the startling ease with which I lifted his wasted body, or the sight of
his withered, drawn, and shrunken features--which were so dreadfully
altered that for a moment I was doubtful whether it really was or was
not the body of Captain Harrison that I held in my arms. I passed him
up out of the boat without difficulty, and then did the same with the
doctor. It struck me that the latter was not quite dead, and I sang out
to Lindsay to get some _very_ weak brandy and water and moisten the lips
of each man as he was passed up on deck; for if life still lingered in
any of them, it might be possible to save them even now by judicious and
careful treatment. Ten of our inanimate shipmates we singled out as
possibly alive, but with the rest the indications of dissolution were so
unmistakable that I deemed it best not to interfere with them, but to
cover the bodies with a sail, weight it well down with ballast pigs, and
then pull the plug out of the boat and cast her adrift, after reading
the burial service over the poor relics of humanity that she contained.

That, however, was a duty that might be deferred until _we_ had attended
to those who had been passed up out of her as possibly alive; we
therefore dropped her under the stern, and allowed her to tow at the
full scope of a complete coil of line, while we devoted ourselves to the
task of attempting to resuscitate the other ten. As I had suspected,
the doctor proved to be alive, for after diligently painting his blue
and shrivelled lips for about a quarter of an hour with a feather dipped
in weak brandy and water, his eyelids quivered, a fluttering sigh passed
his lips, followed by a feeble groan, and his eyes opened, fixing
themselves upon Lindsay and myself in a glassy, unrecognising stare.

"Water! water, for the love of God!" he murmured in a thick, dry, husky
whisper.

I raised his head gently and rested it against my shoulder, while
Lindsay held the pannikin of weak grog to his lips. For a few seconds
he seemed to be incapable of swallowing, then, like a corpse galvanised
into the semblance of life, he