ven only knows, till you probed the wound and extracted
the bullet.

"I must have tumbled into the boat while in a state of insensibility,
like poor Captain Alphonse, for I do not recollect anything that
occurred immediately after I felt the sting of the shot as I was hit,
and when I came to myself again I was horrified to find I was far away
from the ship, which I could only dimly discern in the distance.

"But this did not daunt me at first, for I thought I should be able to
row alongside again and get taken aboard through one of the stern ports;
but, will you believe it, when I came to search the boat for the oars,
which Basseterre had expressly told those clumsy sailors in my hearing
to be sure to put into the boat the very first thing of all, can you
credit it? lo and behold, not a scull nor oar was in her; not a stick of
any sort or kind whatever!"

"The lubbers!" said Captain Applegarth, indignant again as he paced
backwards and forwards impatiently, casting an occasional hurried glance
at the "tell-tale" suspended from the deck above the saloon table, the
shifting dial of which showed we were now changing course to the
westward. "The damned lubbers; the damn--"

The colonel here broke in with-- "This discovery, I think, broke my
heart," cried he, heaving a heavy sigh. "It took the last flickering
gleam of hope away from me, and I sank back again to the bottom of the
boat, appalled and terrified in my mind by the reflections and thoughts,
of what might happen to my darling child and those others whom I had
left on board the _Saint Pierre_, deprived at one fell blow of both
Captain Alphonse and myself.

"When daylight dawned after a night that seemed a century long, so full
of pain and awful thought it was to me, I saw the _Saint Pierre_ low
down on the horizon, to the westward of where I and my poor friend,
Captain Alphonse, were drifting on the desert sea. The sight of the
ship again, even in the distance, and the warmth of the sun's bright
beams, which made the stagnant blood circulate in my veins once more,
gave me hope and renewed courage, for I recollected and thought that
after all, there were eight white men still left on board the ill-fated
vessel to keep possession of her and defend my little one--eight good
men and true, not counting that dastardly coward Boisson, who was
skulking below!

"But, sir, the wind and tide wafted the _Saint Pierre_ away beyond my
vision; and--and--sirs, the--the end