r's medical traps
ready for immediate use.

I soon had to exercise my new office of interpreter, for the man began
shouting again on seeing Mr Jellaby and the coxswain near him.

"Ah del buque!" he screamed out, holding up, as if to signal with it,
one of his emaciated hands, the bony fingers of which looked like those
of a skeleton.

"Como se llama el buque?"

"He says `ship ahoy!' sir," I explained to the doctor. "`What ship is
that?'"

"Tell him who we are, then," replied Dr Nettleby. "He is probably out
of his mind, but it may quiet him."

"Somos marineros Inglesas--we are English sailors," I therefore cried in
as shrill a key as I could to reach his ear, raking up the almost
forgotten memories of my early years, and, I'm afraid, speaking very bad
Spanish. "Del buque de guerra el Candahar de la regna Ingleterra--we
belong to Her Majesty's ship, _Candahar_!"

Bad Spanish or not, however, the poor fellow understood me.

"Gracias a Dios!" he said, his wild eyes brightening with a gleam of
intelligence, as Mr Jellaby and Bill Bates, having unloosed him from
the ropes by which he was seized up to the rigging, brought him across
the deck to the doctor, who at once put a small quantity of brandy
between his lips. "Habran llegado a tiempo."

"What is that, eh?"

"`Thanks be to God,'" I replied, translating what he had said. "`You've
just come in time.'"

"He never made a truer statement," observed the doctor, significantly,
as he plied him gently from time to time with the spirit, keeping his
hand on his pulse the while. "In another half-hour he would have been a
dead man; for, his circulation is down to nothing!"

Presently, the effects of the brandy told upon the poor fellow and he
sprang suddenly to his feet by a sort of spasmodic effort, knocking
Corporal Macan backwards into the water which was washing about the deck
around us as he stood up.

"Ah los marineros cobardes!" he cried. "Vamos printo, hascia abajo!"

"Hullo, Vernon," said Mr Jellaby. "What's he talking about now, eh?"

"I believe he's referring to the crew who deserted the ship and left him
behind to his fate, sir," I answered, "for he has spoken of the
`cowardly sailors,' as he calls them. I think they must have been curs,
sir, to have left him to die tied up like that, sir!"

"Anything else, eh?"

"He also says, `be quick and look below.' I suppose he means for us to
examine the vessel's hold."

"Si si--yes, yes," exclaim