nother day at hand.

The stars were out; the sea was silver; the sun was up!

. . . . .

Hours passed.

I was waiting now for my delirium.

It came in bits.

I was a child. I was playing on the lawn at home. I was back on the
blazing sea.

I was a schoolboy saying my Ovid; then back once more.

The hen-coop was the Lady Jermyn. I was at Eva Denison's side. They were
marrying us on board. The ship's bell was ringing for us; a guitar in
the background burlesqued the Wedding March under skinny fingers; the
air was poisoned by a million cigarettes, they raised a pall of smoke
above the mastheads, they set fire to the ship; smoke and flame covered
the sea from rim to rim, smoke and flame filled the universe; the sea
dried up, and I was left lying in its bed, lying in my coffin, with
red-hot teeth, because the sun blazed right above them, and my withered
lips were drawn back from them for ever.

So once more I came back to my living death; too weak now to carry a
finger to the salt water and back to my mouth; too weak to think of Eva;
too weak to pray any longer for the end, to trouble or to care any more.

Only so tired.

. . . . .

Death has no more terrors for me. I have supped the last horror of the
worst death a man can die. You shall hear now for what I was delivered;
you shall read of my reward.

My floating coffin was many things in turn; a railway carriage, a
pleasure boat on the Thames, a hammock under the trees; last of all it
was the upper berth in a not very sweet-smelling cabin, with a clatter
of knives and forks near at hand, and a very strong odor of onions in
the Irish stew.

My hand crawled to my head; both felt a wondrous weight; and my head
was covered with bristles no longer than those on my chin, only less
stubborn.

"Where am I?" I feebly asked.

The knives and forks clattered on, and presently I burst out crying
because they had not heard me, and I knew that I could never make them
hear. Well, they heard my sobs, and a huge fellow came with his mouth
full, and smelling like a pickle bottle.

"Where am I?"

"Aboard the brig Eliza, Liverpool, homeward bound; glad to see them eyes
open."

"Have I been here long?"

"Matter o' ten days."

"Where did you find me?"

"Floating in a hen-coop; thought you was a dead 'un."

"Do you know what ship?"

"Do we know? No, that's what you've got to tell us!