eech," replied the nurse.

"We may be temperate without being teetotal. Plentiful and yellow,
indeed! I have had a bad dream concerning those who found me. I thought
that they--but it does not matter. She at least is not a myth. Do you
happen to know if any others were saved?"

"I am thankful to be able to say that every one was drowned."

Stanford started up with horror in his eyes. The demure nurse, with
sympathetic tones, bade him not excite himself. He sank back on his
pillow.

"Leave the room," he cried feebly. "Leave me--leave me." He turned his
face toward the wall, while the woman left silently as she had entered.

[Illustration: "HE NOTICED THAT THE DOOR HAD NO FASTENING."]

When she was gone Stanford slid from the bed, intending to make his way
to the door and fasten it. He feared that these savages, who wished him
dead, would take measures to kill him when they saw that he was going to
recover. As he leaned against the bed, he noticed that the door had no
fastening. There was a rude latch, but neither lock nor bolt. The
furniture of the room was of the most meagre description, clumsily made.
He staggered to the open window, and looked out. The remnants of the
disastrous gale blew in upon him and gave him new life, as it had
formerly threatened him with death. He saw that he was in a village of
small houses, each cottage standing in its own plot of ground. It was
apparently a village of one street, and over the roofs of the houses
opposite he saw in the distance the white waves of the sea. What
astonished him most was a church with its tapering spire at the end of
the street--a wooden church such as he had seen in remote American
settlements. The street was deserted, and there were no signs of life in
the houses.

"I must have fallen in upon some colony of lunatics," he said to
himself. "I wonder to what country these people belong--either to
England or the United States, I imagine--yet in all my travels I never
heard of such a colony."

There was no mirror in the room, and it was impossible for him to know
how he looked. His clothes were dry and powdered with salt. He arranged
them as well as he could, and slipped out of the house unnoticed. When
he reached the outskirts of the village he saw that the inhabitants,
both men and women, were working in the fields some distance away.
Coming towards the village was a girl with a water-can in either hand.
She was singing as blithely as a lark until she saw