It was very puzzling and confusing, and when for the third time he felt that he was saying that he was so hot and so thirsty he uttered a sigh and said to himself that he must get up and drink a glass of water and open his bed-room window, before lying down again.
This thought roused him a little from his deep, heavy, stupefied state, and he had a surprise. For he made an effort to get up, and then felt startled on realising the fact that he was not lying down, but sitting in an awkward position, his head hanging back over the side of a chair, and his neck stiffened and aching.
Then he knew that he was not at home in Devonshire, but in the state-room of a ship, and that the heat was stifling.
This was enough to rouse him from his state of stupefaction a little more, and then as he straightened his neck and looked about he fully awoke with one mental leap.
His first glance was at Carey, who had moved and lay in a different position, but was quite motionless now.
His next was at the little port-hole window, which he unfastened and threw open, to feel a puff of soft air and hear the gentle washing of the ocean, which spread out calm and still like a sea of gold beneath an orange sky.
It was very calm, just heaving softly, and from a distance came at intervals the deep booming roar of the breakers on a reef; but there was hardly a breath of air, for the terrible hurricane had passed.
Stiff and aching from the awkward position in which he had slept, the doctor crossed to the door and pushed it open wide, with the result that the suffocating atmosphere of the cabin began rapidly to give place to the soft, warm, pure air, every breath of which cleared the late sleeper’s brain and gave him strength.
“Bostock—Bostock,” he said, softly; but there was no answer, and he bent down and touched the sleeper on the shoulder.
“Where away then?” grumbled the man.