m
of the ocean they had loved in life so well.

We stood on until midnight, when we tacked to the northward; in which
direction we steered during the whole of next day and the following
night, when we deemed ourselves far enough to windward to enable us to
pass between the Islands of Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and fetch
Barbadoes on the other tack.

In the meantime all the wounded were doing well except poor little
Fisher. His injuries were of a very serious nature, a cutlass-blow
having cloven his right shoulder until it had nearly severed the arm
from the body, and his right lung was penetrated by a pike-thrust. The
skipper had ordered a cot to be slung for the little fellow in his own
cabin, and thither I went as often as I could, to sit beside him, help
him to the cooling drinks which our kind-hearted medico had concocted
for him, and cheer him up when his spirits drooped, as they too often
did. Exhausted by loss of blood and severe physical suffering, his
nervous system appeared to have completely broken down, and the
incessant heave and roll of the ship distressed him almost beyond his
powers of endurance.

"Oh! Chester," he said to me one day, "if I could but be on shore, I
believe I should get better. It tires me out to lie here, hour after
hour, watching the sway of the ship. And then it is so dreadfully hot
here, although the stern-ports are always open. What I should like is
to be on shore, in a nice large room, with the windows open and the sea-
breeze rushing in, laden with the odour of flowers, and to lie and
listen to the rustle of leaves, and watch the branches of the trees
swaying in the wind, with the birds and butterflies glancing to and fro,
and the sunlight glittering upon the water. I can't sleep now, with the
tramping of feet overhead, the creaking of the bulkheads, and the
everlasting wash of the sea sounding in my ears, but I believe I _could_
sleep then; and if I could sleep I feel that I should get better."

A day or two after he had said this, I went down to see him toward
evening, and at the cabin-door I met the doctor just coming out.

"How is he this evening, doctor?" I inquired.

"Worse; very much worse. I am beginning to despair of him now. He is
light-headed, and I question if he will recognise you," was the
discouraging reply.

I went in and found the skipper himself standing by the cot, holding one
dry burning hand in his, listening to the incoherent ramblings of