y-note required, and my memory returned. "Yes,
yes, I recollect now all, all. I recollect the panther and the
cane-brakes. How was I preserved?"

"The bloodhounds killed the panther, and you were brought on board
insensible, and have been in a raging fever ever since."

"It must be so," replied I, collecting my senses after a few moments of
thought. "It must be so. How long have I been ill?"

"This is the twenty-first day."

"The twenty-first day!" cried I. "Is it possible? Are none of the men
ill?"

"No, Sir, they are all well."

"But I hear the water against the bends. Are we not still at anchor?"

"No, Sir, the second mate got the schooner under weigh as he found you
were so ill."

"And I have been ill twenty-one days! Why we must be near home?"

"We expect to make the land in a few days, Sir," replied Ingram.

"Thank Heaven for all its mercies," said I. "I never expected to see
old England again. But what a bad smell there is. What can it be?"

"I suppose it is the bilge-water, Sir," replied Ingram. "People who are
ill and weak always are annoyed by it; but I think, Sir, if you would
take a little gruel, and then go to sleep again, it would be better."

"Well, I fear I am not very strong, and talking so much has done me no
good. I think I could take a little gruel."

"Then, Sir, I'll go and get some made, and be back very soon."

"Do, Ingram, and tell Mr Olivarez, the second mate, that I would speak
to him."

"Yes, I will," replied the man, and he left the state-room.

I waited some time listening for the arrival of the second mate, and
then I thought that I heard odd noises in the hold before the bulk-head
of the state-room in which I was lying, but I was still very weak, and
my head swam. After a time Ingram came down with the gruel, into which
he put some sugar and a spoonful of rum, to flavour it, as he said. He
offered it to me, and I drank it all, for I had an appetite; but whether
it was that I was very weak, or the rum he put in was more than he said,
it is certain that I had hardly given him back the basin than I felt so
drowsy that I turned away from him, and was soon again in forgetfulness.

This Ingram was a young man who had been apprenticed to an apothecary,
and had taken to the sea. He was well educated, and a very merry
fellow, and I had chosen him as one who could attend upon me in the
cabin, and at the same time be otherwise useful if required, as he was a
very