r away, I raised myself as high as I could on my spar
and waved my rag of sail desperately. I tried to shout, but could not bring
out so much as a whisper. I waved and waved. She was coming--coming. She
was abreast of me, and showed no sign of having seen me. She was
passing--passing. I remember scrambling up onto the spar and
waving--waving--waving--

* * * * *

I came to myself in the comforting confinement of a bunk. I could touch
the side and the roof. They were real and solid. I rubbed my hand on them.
There was mighty comfort and assurance of safety in the very feel of them.

I lay between white sheets, and there was a pillow under my head. I tried
to raise my head to look about me, but it swam like oil in a pitching lamp,
and I was glad to drop it on the pillow again. The place was full of
creakings, a sound I knew right well.

A door opened. I turned my head on the pillow and saw a stout little man
looking at me with much interest.

"Ah ha!" he said, with a friendly nod. "That's all right. Come back at
last, have you? Narrow squeak you made of it. How long had you been on that
spar?"

"I remember--a night and a day--and a night--and the beginning of a day," I
said, and my voice sounded harsh and odd to me.

"And nothing to eat or drink?"

"I chewed some seaweed, I think."

"Must have been in excellent condition or you'd never have stood it."

"What ship?"

"_Plinlimmon Castle_, East Indiaman, homeward bound. This is sick-bay.
You're in my charge. Hungry?"

"No," and I felt surprised at myself for not being.

"I should think not," he laughed. "Been dropping soup and brandy into you
every chance we got for twenty-four hours past. Head swimmy?"

"Yes," and I tried to raise it, but dropped back onto the pillow.

"Another bit of sleep and you shall tell us all about it." And he went
out, and I fell asleep again.

I woke next time to my wits, and could sit up in the bunk without my head
going round. The little doctor came in presently with another whom I took
to be the captain of the Indiaman. He was elderly and jovial-looking, face
like brown leather, with a fringe of white whisker all round it.

In answer to his questions I told him who I was, and where from, and how I
came to be on the spar.

"But, by ----!" he swore lustily, when I came to the flying flails and the
shooting of the drowning men, "that was sheer bloody murder!"

"Murder as cruel as ever was done,