"Longstreet," he began again more urgently, "tell me, is it all over, can it be true?"
Longstreet nodded, incapable of speech.
"Our poor, poor country," whispered Winstanley.
After a long pause Longstreet suddenly broke the silence by remarking: "The Nebraska went down at about six o'clock."
"And the Georgia a little earlier," said Winstanley; "but where are we? How did I get here?"
"The torpedo boat Farragut fished us up after the battle. We are on board the hospital ship Ontario with about five hundred other survivors."
"And what has become of the rest of our squadron?" asked Winstanley apprehensively. Longstreet only shrugged his shoulders.
Then they both dozed again and listened to the splashing and gurgling of the water against the ship's side and to the dull, regular thud of the engine which by degrees began to form words in Winstanley's fever-heated imagination—meaningless words which seemed to pierce his brain with painful sharpness: "Oh, won't you come across," rose and fell the oily melody, keeping time with the action of the piston-rods of the engine, "Oh, won't you come across," repeated the walls, and "Oh, won't you come across," clattered the water-bottle over in the wooden rack. Again and again Winstanley said the words to himself in an everlasting, dull repetition.
Longstreet looked at him compassionately, and murmured: "Another attack of fever." Then he got up, and bending over his comrade, looked out of the porthole.
Water everywhere; nothing but sparkling, glistening water, broad, blue, rolling waves to be seen as far as the eye could reach. Not a sign of a ship anywhere.