“Nay, my lad,” said the old sailor, shaking his head; “never no more.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you must know, Carey, my lad,” said the doctor; “but I don’t want you to become excited about it. If I tell you, will you lie still then and be patient?”
“Of course I will, doctor, if I must.”
“The fact is, then, since your fall we have been in a terrible hurricane.”
“A hurricane? Why, it was only this morning I tumbled.”
The doctor shook his head.
“Never mind when it was,” he said. “You have been lying here some time, and I grieve to tell you that while you were insensible we had a great mishap. The main shaft broke, and we have been driven on a reef.”
“Wrecked?”
“Yes.”