And now I never thought but that I had reached my journey's end, that all was over with me. Huge seas swept over the bows, the vessel soon began to fill with water, she rolled and tossed from side to side so that I could not keep my feet, and then I heard a crash, I saw the mainmast falling swiftly towards me, I felt a blow that shot a thousand stars from my eyes, and I knew no more.
* * * * * * *
When I again recovered of my senses I understood not at first where I was, excepting that I was lying in a berth in a dark cabin, that all my head was swathed in cloths, and that standing near me was an elderly man, regarding me attentively.
"Where," I asked, "am I! This is not the galliot."
"So," he replied in my own tongue, "you are an Englishman! We thought by the build of your galliot that you were a Dutchman. Who and what are you?"
"Lieutenant Crafer, late of his Majesty's navy, and late first Lieutenant of the Furie, Captain Phips. What ship is this?"
"His Majesty's Virgin Prize, a 32-gun frigate, Captain John Balchen. Homeward bound. You should know this officer, Lieutenant Crafer."
"Very well," I answered. "We have served together. Yet 'tis not strange if he knows not me, no razor has touched my face for many weeks."
And so it was that I found myself bound to England in a King's ship, having for her captain a man whom I had been at sea with ere now, when he was my subaltern. That I told him all as regards the treasure you are not to suppose; that secret was locked in my own breast, to be divulged to one only, Phips. But I did give him a very fair and considerable history of much that we had gone through, and, living with him in his cabin and at his table, you may be sure that we had many talks on the subject of the sunken plate-ship.
"Yet," said he often, "I misdoubt me if King James will be there to take his tenths when Phips gets the Furie home. The people will endure him but little longer--he is now an avowed Papish--and already there are whisperings of putting one of his daughters in his place. If 'twere Mary all would be well, since she is married to a staunch Protestant, though the country would scarce accept him, too, I think."