dering what next. For nearly two days we had not tasted food or
moistened our lips; and here we were, perhaps a week or a month from
land, in a bare boat on a hungry sea. Might we not as well have gone
down with the _Misericorde_?

The daylight went, and presently it was too dark even to see my comrade
across the little boat. The last I saw of him he had closed his eyes,
and seemed to be composing himself for sleep. But I guessed it was the
sleep, not of weariness, but of hunger. The night went on; and
presently I could hear him mutter in his sleep. He fancied himself
still in the Tower with his warder, whom he charged with messages to me
and the maiden. And sometimes he was in the presence of the Scotch
Queen, and sometimes in Dunluce with his father. It was all a fevered
jumble of talk, which made the night seem weird and horrible to me, and
full of dread for the day that was to come.

When it dawned, which it did early, the sea was tumbling wearily,
shrouded in a thick mist, which chilled me where I sat, and blotted out
everything beyond a little space around the boat. Ludar by this time
was awake, but still wandering in his mind with hunger and fever; while
I, after my sleepless night, felt my eyelids grow heavy.

How long I slept I know not; but I know I dreamt I was at the foot of
the great rock of Dunluce, and looking up could just spy a light on the
battlements, and hear a gun and the shout of battle on the top; when
suddenly I woke and found it was more than a dream.

High above my head in the mist there loomed a light, and from beyond it
there sounded the tolling of a bell, and, as I thought, a clash of arms.
I looked across at Ludar, and saw him, too, looking up, but too weak to
speak or move. Then the light seemed to plunge downwards, towards us,
showing us a huge black outline of a ship, within a few yards of where
we drifted.

Instantly I sprang to my feet and shouted, and called to Ludar to do the
same. For a moment it seemed we were unheeded. The light swung once
more upwards, and after it the great ship, carrying a swirl of water
with it, and throwing off a whirlpool of little eddies, in which our
boat spun and shook like a leaf in a torrent. Again we shouted,
frantically. And then it seemed the bell ceased tolling, and instead
there came a call; after that something sharp struck me on the cheek,
and flinging up my hand I caught a cord, and felt the boat's keel grind
sharply against t