ack to the schooner. We shan't be long
getting up to it with this tide. Why, hallo here! Not content with
losing the oars and boat-hook, you've been and got the gig stove in!
And the grapnel gone too! Here, you Joe Cross, what's the meaning of
all this?"

"I'll tell you about that, captain, by and by," said Rodd quickly.
"What's that? You want to come aboard, Morny? No, you had better not.
It's all muddy, and we shall have to begin baling. Pitch us in a couple
of tins."

"I'll bring them," cried the young Frenchman, rising in the boat.--"Yes,
my father, I wish to go. Hook on, and let me get aboard," he continued
to the French coxswain.

Half-an-hour later, with the men taking it in turns to bale, and with
the crocodiles seeming to have become more scarce, they ran up alongside
of the two anchored vessels, cheering and being cheered from the moment
they came into sight.

"Now, my lads," cried the doctor, "every one of you take what I'll mix
up for you directly, and have a good bathe and rub down. I am not going
to have you all down with fever if I can stave it off."

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.

TALKING LIKE A BOY.

Perhaps it was nearly all weariness and the result of the excitement,
but it may have been due to Uncle Paul's potion; at any rate Rodd went
off fast asleep, and when he awoke it was to find Morny sitting by his
cot. "Hullo!" he cried. "You here!"

"Yes, I am here," was the reply. "How are you?"

"Oh, I am all right. Have I been to sleep?"

"Well, yes, you have been to sleep," said Morny, smiling at him in a
rather peculiar way.

"What are you laughing at?"

"Oh, I was only smiling at you."

"What, am I scratched and knocked about?"

"Oh, very slightly."

"But I say, I am so precious hungry. What time is it?"

"Just upon six. Some bells or another, as you call it."

"Get out! Why, it was seven o'clock this morning when I lay down to
sleep after my bath; so how can it be six o'clock? You don't mean to
say that it is six o'clock in the evening?"

"Indeed, but I do. You had better jump up, or it will soon be dark."

"What a nuisance! Why, I must have slept twelve hours."

"Oh, you think so, do you? Yes, a good deal more than that. I was
getting quite alarmed about you, only your uncle said you were quite
right and you were to have your sleep out."

"I say, look here," cried Rodd; "am I dreaming, or are you playing
tricks? I am getting muddled over this. I lay down