with a yawn, stretching himself out
on a seat, and in less than half a minute he was sound asleep.

Poor Harry had very hard work to keep awake. He could not venture to
remain sitting. More than once his eyes closed. Phantom shapes passed
before his eyes, strange sounds came into his ears, shrieks, cries, and
groans; sometimes he heard, he thought, shouts from afar. His brain
swam round. In another instant he would have lost all consciousness.
He had to spring to his feet, and to bail away with one hand while he
held the tiller with the other. He would not venture to sit down again;
indeed, the high, green, rolling, froth-topped seas, by which he was
surrounded, were sufficient to keep him awake. At last, putting down
the skid, he looked at his watch. It was past six o'clock. David had
slept more than his allotted hour, and yet he could scarcely bring
himself to awake him.

"Poor fellow, he is not so accustomed to this sort of work as I am," he
said to himself. "After that long swim, too, he requires rest, and had
it not been for his courage I should no longer have been in this world.
I'll try and keep awake a little longer."

Harry did his best to do as he intended. He kept moving his feet, he
talked aloud, he sang even. He looked at old Jefferies. He thought he
was nodding his head and answering him, but he could not make out what
was said. At last he felt that, if David did not wake up and come to
his relief, he should drop down, and the boat would broach to, and they
would all be drowned.

"David! David!" he tried to cry out, but his tongue seemed to cleave to
the roof of his mouth. Still he kept the tiller in his hand, striving
steadily. He made one more effort. "David! help! help!" he shouted.
David's mind was far away in his father's garden, with his sisters and
sweet Mary Rymer. He was telling them about Harry being in danger, but
he had forgotten he was with his friend. At last he heard himself
called. He started up, and was just in time to seize the tiller, which
Harry had that instant let slip from his grasp, as he sank down to the
bottom of the boat. In another second of time the boat would have
broached to. The gloom of evening was coming on rapidly, and there was
but a dreary prospect for poor David. He still felt very sleepy, and
had almost as much difficulty in keeping awake as before. He managed to
drag Harry to one side, and to place some of the nets under his head as
a pi