deed. Now,
another drink of lemonade, if you please--by the way, you may as well
leave the jug and glass within my reach--and then, if you insist upon
running away, why, good-bye for the present."

The lad left me, and I fell into a rather gloomy reverie upon the fate
of poor Ryan and that of the gallant fellows who had fallen in our
ill-planned attack upon the occupants of this unlucky creek, as well as
upon my own future, the uncertainty of which stood out the more clearly
the longer I looked at it. I think I must have become slightly
light-headed eventually, for twice or thrice I caught myself muttering
aloud in a rather excited fashion, now imagining myself to be in the
thick of the fight once more, and anon fancying myself to be one of the
slaves that were imprisoned in the brigantine's noisome hold; until
finally my ideas became so hopelessly jumbled together that I could make
nothing of them, and then followed a period of oblivion from which I
awoke to find the state-room faintly illumined by the turned-down lamp
screwed to the ship's side near the head of my bunk, and by the more
brilliant rays of a lamp in the main cabin, the light of which streamed
through the lattices in the upper panel of the state-room door. The
ship was heeling slightly, and I knew by the gurgle and wash of water
along her side that she was under weigh, but still in perfectly smooth
water, for I was unable to detect the slightest heave, or rising and
falling motion in her. There was an intermittent faint murmur of voices
overhead, an occasional footfall on the deck, and now and then the creak
and clank of the wheel-chains following a call from the forecastle, all
of which led me to the conclusion that the brigantine was effecting the
passage of the creek on her way seaward. This state of things continued
for perhaps a quarter of an hour, when I felt the vessel lift as if to a
small swell, the wash and splash of the water along her side became more
pronounced, then came a light plunge, with a corresponding roar of the
bow wave; her heel perceptibly increased, and the pipe of the wind took
a more sonorous sound; an expression or two in tones that seemed to
indicate a feeling of relief and satisfaction passed between the persons
overhead, and then a string of orders pealed forth from one of them,
followed by the clatter of ropes thrown down on the deck, and the cries
of the crew as they made sail upon the vessel. The movements of the
cr