n one is awake.

"They couldn't be under the floor?" I asked, absurdly clinging to a
straw of hope that Sylvia might be there.

"Lor' bless you, no, sir! I tell you, Mr. Jack, they just sailed as
close as they dared to those islands, and skipped--the hull pack of 'em;
first having headed the _Orchid_ out as we found her. That's why
everything was so quiet the larst part of the night--there warn't anyone
here to _make_ a noise!"

Passing back to the galley we saw half our crew, in a circle, looking
down at the wounded man.

"Who is it, Tommy?" I asked. "Not the old scoundrel himself, by any good
luck?"

"Stranger yet," he said, waving the others back and standing up, "It's
your black giant of the Key West docks!"

"How the devil did he get here?" I cried, pushing between the men and
also looking down at him. "How did he get here?" I asked again, but
Tommy had gone.

Someone had put a cushion under his head. His eyes were open, gazing up
with their former gentle expression; more sad now, I fancied, since the
great human machine he had controlled was wounded.

"How did he get here?" I repeated my general question, this time
straight at him.

His lips moved with a curious, rather horrible, inarticulate sound, and
his glance swept our crew as though in search of a face. Then he seemed
to give it up, and passed a hand slowly over his forehead. I was about
to order him carried on deck when Tommy called through the galley
portlight:

"Fetch your wounded, Jack! The professor's here with his outfit!"

As our men stooped to obey the big fellow surprised us by quietly
arising; and, when cushions had been arranged in a shaded place above,
he laid on them as obediently as a docile mastiff. Monsieur, very much
in his element, became busy at once.

The _Whim_ and the _Orchid_ were still at grips--or rather were it more
correct to say the _Orchid_ was in the _Whim's_ grip. Lines had been
passed through the chocks of each, sails had been hauled down, and both
yachts rode inertly side by side.

The part of our crew that had stayed behind to attend these matters now
came over the rail like monkeys, grinning broadly and crowding up to
shake hands with me--a wholly uncalled for proceeding which charmed me,
nevertheless.

"Lie on your face," I heard Monsieur saying to the big black. He had
become excessively busy and his fingers were feeling everywhere over the
man's cranium, yet as tenderly as a woman's. "What struck you?"