asked I once more,--"and then?"

"That must depend on the revenue cruisers, I believe," said he, more
gruffly, and evidently indisposed to further questioning.

Alas! I had too little interest in life to care for where, and laying my
head upon my arm, fell into a heavy stupor for several hours.

The hot sun, the breeze, the unaccustomed motion, and worse than all,
the copious libations of brandy and water I was forced from time to
time to take, gradually brought on fever; and before evening, a burning
thirst and throbbing headache seized me, and my senses, that hitherto
had been but lethargic, became painfully acute, and my reason began to
wander. In this state I remained for days, totally unconscious of the
flight of time; frightful images of the past pursuing each other through
my heated brain, and torturing me with horrors unspeakable.

It was in one of my violent paroxysms I tore the bandage from my side,
and reopening my half-healed wound, became in a moment deluged with
blood. I have no memory of aught that followed; the debility of almost
death itself succeeded, and I lay without sense or motion. To this
circumstance I owed my life, for when I next rallied the fever had left
me, my senses were unclouded, my cheek no longer burned, nor did my
temples throb; and as the sea breeze played across my face, I drank it
in with ecstasy, and felt once more the glorious sensations of returning
health.

It was evening; the faint wind that follows sunset scarce filled the
sails as we glided along through the waveless sea. I had been listening
to the low, monotonous song of one of the sailors as he sat mending a
sail beside me, when suddenly I heard a voice hail us from the water.
The skipper jumped on the halfdeck, and immediately replied. The words
I could not hear, but by the stir and movement about me I saw something
unusual had occurred, and by an effort I raised my head above the
bulwark and looked about me. A long, low craft lay close alongside us,
filled with men, whose blue caps and striped shirts struck me as strange
and uncommon, not less than their black belts and cutlasses, with which
every man was armed. After an interchange of friendly greetings with our
crew,--for such they seemed, although I could not catch the words,--she
moved rapidly past us.

"There's their flotilla, sir," said the helmsman, as he watched my eye
while it wandered over the water.

I crept up higher, and followed the direction of his