is clothes; may be
'tis Kiah's middy; there'd be a thing if we'd picked him up!'

'He's alive, isn't he?' gasped the stranger.

'Alive, sir? Bless you, yes! he's coming round this minute; give us
the can there, Tom; turn his face this way. How now, sir; won't you
live to drub the "froggies" again, eh?'

Even as he spoke the boy's eyelids fluttered, and then a pair of wide
grey eyes looked wonderingly round the group. He closed them again,
drew a long breath, and then looked about him with understanding coming
back to his face.

'Where am I?' he asked, and at the same moment his fingers seemed to be
seeking for something.

'Aboard the _Elizabeth_ of Plymouth, sir, thanks to this here gentleman
that took to the water for you when you and your raft parted company.
Is it a bit of a leather bag you might be looking for, sir?'

'Yes, is it here?' said the boy eagerly, and trying to lift his head;
'there are French papers in it, despatches I think. I dived after them
when they threw them overboard; I kept them as dry as I could.'

'Safe they are, sir, and wonderful dry considering,' said one of the
men after a hasty examination.

'You bean't the young gent from the _Mermaid_ frigate, I suppose?' said
another, pushing his head into the group.

'I'm Godfrey Wyndham, H.M.S. _Mermaid_', said the boy faintly, and
then, with sudden eagerness, 'Do you know anything about her?'

'Safe in Plymouth, sir, with a nice prize behind her. Every one taking
on fine about you, sir.'

'Thank God!' the boy said simply and reverently. At the same moment
there was an exclamation:

'What's wrong with the gentleman?'

The stranger had pushed his way through the group and was leaning over
the boy, looking whiter than Godfrey himself, and with a strange hungry
gaze in his eyes. The kindly fishermen took hold of him, for he was
trembling from head to foot.

'You let him be, sir, he'll do all right. Come you below and have a
drop o' something, you're dead beat. There, sir, let him be a bit, and
he'll talk to you fast enough. He's a tough little heart of oak, he
is; let him be a bit and he'll do.'

'What did he say his name was?' said the stranger, kneeling down by the
young midshipman and trying to steady his voice.

The fishermen shook their heads; they didn't rightly catch, only he
belonged to the _Mermaid_, they were sure of that. Did the gentleman
know him?

'I am not sure; perhaps I do,' said the stranger briefly, an