--lolled lazily about the deck, the three invalids of
the ship's company were convalescing in different degrees.

Jenkins, dumb and wheezy, lay prone in a forecastle bunk, trying to
wonder how it happened. His mental faculties, though apprising him that
he was alive, would hardly carry him to the point of wonder; for wonder
predicates imagination, and what little Jenkins was born with had been
shocked out of him.

Still he struggled, and puzzled and guessed, weakly, as to what had
happened to him, and when a committee from the loungers above visited
him, and asked what struck him, he could only point suggestively to his
throat, and wag his head. He could not even whisper; and so they left
him, pondering upon the profanely expressed opinion of old Kelly that it
was a "visitation from God."

The committee went aft to the skipper's quarters, and here loud talk and
profanity ceased; for there was a woman below, and, while these fellows
were not gentlemen--as the term is understood--they were men--bad men,
but men.

On the way down the stairs, Kelly struck, bare-handed, his watch mate
Hawkes for expressing an interest in the good looks of the woman; and
Sampson, a giant, like his namesake, smote old Kelly, hip and thigh, for
qualifying his strictures on the comment of Hawkes.

Thus corrected and enjoined, with caps in hand, they approached the open
door of the starboard room, where lay the injured woman in a berth,
fully clothed in her now dried garments, and her face still hidden in
Denman's bandage.

"Excuse me, madam," said Sampson, the present chairman of the committee,
"can we do anything for you?"

"I cannot see you," she answered, faintly. "I do not know where I am,
nor what will happen to me. But I am in need of attention. One man was
kind to me, but he has not returned. Who are you--you men?"

"We're the crew of the boat," answered Sampson, awkwardly. "The
skipper's forward, and I guess the man that was kind to you is our
prisoner. He's not on the job now, but--what can we do?"

"Tell me where I am, and where I am going. What boat is this? Who are
you?"

"Well, madam," broke in old Kelly, "we're a crowd o' jail-breakers that
stole a torpedo-boat destroyer, and put to sea. We got you off a burned
and sinking yacht, and you're here with us; but I'm blessed if I know
what we'll do with you. Our necks are in the halter, so to speak--or
rather, our hands and ankles are in irons for life, if we're caught.
You