numbed hands could set the lashing free.

It would be idle for me to attempt to describe to you all I felt as the
captain of the steamship _Hoffnung_ greeted me upon his quarterdeck,
and his men sent up rounds of cheers which echoed over the waters. I
stood for some minutes forgetful of everything, save that I had been
snatched from that prison of steel; brought from the shadow of the
living death to the hope of seeing friends, and country, and home
again. Now one man wrung my hand, now another brought clothes, now
another hot food; but I stood as one stricken dumb, holding nervously
to the taffrail as though none should drag me down again to the horrors
of the dinghy, or to that terrible loneliness which had hung over my
life for so many weeks. And then there came a great reaction, an
overpowering weakness, a great sense of thankfulness, and tears
gushed up in my eyes, and fell upon my numbed hands. The good fellows
about me, whose German was for the most part unintelligible to me,
appreciated well the condition in which I was; and, with many
encouraging pats on the back, they forced me down their companion way
to the skipper's cabin, and so to a bunk, where I lay inanimate, and
deep in sleep for many hours. But I awoke as another man, and when I
had taken a great bowl of soup and some wine, my strength seemed to
return to me with bounds, and I sat up to find they had taken away my
clothes, but that the belt which Black had bound about me lay at the
foot of the bunk, and was unopened.

For some minutes I held this belt in my hand with a curious and
inexplicable hesitation. It was not heavy, being all of linen finely
sewed; but when at last I made up my mind to open it, I did so with my
teeth, tearing the threads at the top of it, and so ripping it down.
The action was followed by a curious result, for as I opened the seams
there fell upon my bed some twenty or thirty diamonds of such size and
such lustre that they lay sparkling with a thousand lights which
dazzled the eyes, and made me utter a cry at once of surprise and of
admiration. White stones they were, Brazilian diamonds of the first
water; and when I undid the rest of the seam, and opened the belt
fully, I found at least fifty more, with some superb black pearls, a
fine emerald, and a little parcel of exquisite rubies. To the latter
there was attached a paper with the words, "My son, for as such I
regard you, take these; they are honestly come by. And let me w