rapped in a dry blanket he was laid beside the
mast, and the mate forced a few drops of rum every few minutes between
his lips until the little spark of life which still lingered in him
might be fanned to a flame. Meanwhile Ephraim Savage had ordered up the
two prisoners whom he had entrapped at Honfleur. Very foolish they
looked as they stood blinking and winking in the daylight from which
they had been so long cut off.

"Very sorry, captain," said the seaman, "but either you had to come with
us, d'ye see, or we had to stay with you. They're waiting for me over
at Boston, and in truth I really couldn't tarry."

The French soldier shrugged his shoulders and looked around him with a
lengthening face. He and his corporal were limp with sea-sickness, and
as miserable as a Frenchman is when first he finds that France has
vanished from his view.

"Which would you prefer, to go on with us to America, or go back to
France?"

"Back to France, if I can find my way. Oh, I must get to France again
if only to have a word with that fool of a gunner."

"Well, we emptied a bucket of water over his linstock and priming, d'ye
see, so maybe he did all he could. But there's France, where that
thickening is over yonder."

"I see it! I see it! Ah, if my feet were only upon it once more."

"There is a boat beside us, and you may take it."

"My God, what happiness! Corporal Lemoine, the boat! Let us push off at
once."

"But you need a few things first. Good Lord, who ever heard of a man
pushing off like that! Mr. Tomlinson, just sling a keg of water and a
barrel of meat and of biscuit into this boat. Hiram Jefferson, bring
two oars aft. It's a long pull with the wind in your teeth, but you'll
be there by to-morrow night, and the weather is set fair."

The two Frenchmen were soon provided with all that they were likely to
require, and pushed off with a waving of hats and a shouting of _bon
voyage_. The foreyard was swung round again and the _Golden Rod_ turned
her bowsprit for the west. For hours a glimpse could be caught of the
boat, dwindling away on the wave-tops, until at last it vanished into
the haze, and with it vanished the very last link which connected them
with the great world which they were leaving behind them.

But whilst these things had been done, the senseless man beneath the
mast had twitched his eyelids, had drawn a little gasping breath, and
then finally had opened his eyes. His skin was like gr