e. I lay there for ages on ages before
I awoke to the fact that the darkness about me was the darkness of
a ship's hold, and the murmur of the forest the wash of the water
alongside. I put out an arm and touched, not the side of a grave, but a
ship's timbers. I stretched forth the other arm, then dropped it with a
groan. Some one bent over me and held water to my lips. I drank, and my
senses came fully to me. "Diccon!" I said.

"It's not Diccon," replied the figure, setting down a pitcher. "It is
Jeremy Sparrow. Thank God, you are yourself again!"

"Where are we?" I asked, when I had lain and listened to the water a
little longer.

"In the hold of the George," he answered. "The ship sank by the bows,
and well-nigh all were drowned. But when they upon the George saw that
there was a woman amongst us who clung to the poop deck, they sent their
longboat to take us off."

The light was too dim for me to read his face, so I touched his arm.

"She was saved," he said. "She is safe now. There are gentlewomen
aboard, and she is in their care."

I put my unhurt arm across my eyes.

"You are weak yet," said the minister gently. "The Spaniard's ball, you
know, went through your shoulder, and in some way your arm was badly
torn from shoulder to wrist. You have been out of your head ever since
we were brought here, three days ago. The chirurgeon came and dressed
your wound, and it is healing well. Don't try to speak,--I'll tell
you all. Diccon has been pressed into service, as the ship is short of
hands, having lost some by fever and some overboard. Four of the pirates
were picked up, and hung at the yardarm next morning."

He moved as he spoke, and something clanked in the stillness. "You are
ironed!" I exclaimed.

"Only my ankles. My lord would have had me bound hand and foot; but you
were raving for water, and, taking you for a dying man, they were so
humane as to leave my hands free to attend you."

"My lord would have had you bound," I said slowly. "Then it's my lord's
day."

"High noon and blazing sunshine," he answered, with a rueful laugh. "It
seems that half the folk on board had gaped at him at court. Lord! when
he put his foot over the side of the ship, how the women screeched and
the men stared! He 's cock of the walk now, my Lord Carnal, the King's
favorite!"

"And we are pirates."

"That 's the case in a nutshell," he answered cheerfully.

"Do they know how the ship came to strike upon that reef?" I a