counterfeit partial delirium, by which means he contrived to
give the first mate a hint that all was right, and declined, without
creating suspicion, to give any intelligible answers as to who he was or
where he had come from.

The blow on his head caused him considerable pain, but his mind was
relieved by one of the young surgeons, who remarked to another, in going
round the wards, that the "skull of that long chap wasn't fractured
after all, and he had no doubt he would be dismissed cured in a day or
two." So the cook lay quiet until it was dark.

When the house-surgeon had paid his last visit, and the nurses had gone
their rounds in the accident-ward, and no sound disturbed the quiet of
the dimly-lighted apartment save the heavy fitful breathing and
occasional moans and restless motions of the sufferers, Nikel Sling
raised himself on his elbow, and glanced stealthily round on the rows of
pain-worn and haggard countenances around him. It was a solemn sight to
look upon, especially at that silent hour of the night. There were men
there with almost every species of painful wound and fracture. Some had
been long there, wasting away from day to day, and now lay quiet, though
suffering, from sheer exhaustion. Others there were who had been
carried in that day, and fidgeted impatiently in their unreduced
strength, yet nervously in their agony; or, in some cases, where the
fear of death was on them, clasped their hands and prayed in whispers
for mercy to Him whose name perhaps they had almost never used before
except for the purpose of taking it in vain.

But such sights had little or no effect on the cook, who had rubbed hard
against the world's roughest sides too long to be easily affected by the
sight of human suffering, especially when exhibited in men. He paused
long enough to note that the nurses were out of the way or dozing, and
then slipping out of bed, he stalked across the room like a ghost, and
made for the outer gateway of the hospital. He knew the way, having
once before been a temporary inmate of the place. He reached the gate
undiscovered, tripped up the porter's heels, opened the wicket, and fled
towards the harbour, followed by the porter and a knot of chance
passers-by. The pursuers swelled into a crowd as he neared the harbour.

Besides being long-limbed, Nikel Sling was nimble. He distanced his
pursuers easily, and, as we have seen, swam off and reached his ship
almost as soon as they gained