"From head to foot, I'm covered with bruises," continued the stranger; "I got off with very few cuts. I have one over my temple, and half-a-dozen here and there, and one here on my wrist; but you need not take any trouble about them—a cut, when I get one, heals almost of itself. A bit of court-plaster is all I require for them, and Mrs. Something, the housekeeper here, has given me some; but I'm rather seedy. I must have swallowed a lot of salt water, I fancy. I've got off very well, though, if it's true all the other people were drowned. It was a devil of a fluke; you'd say I was the luckiest fellow alive, ha, ha, ha! I wish I could think so."
He laughed, a little bitterly.
"There are very few men glad to meet death when it comes," said Doctor Mervyn. "Some think they are fit to die, and some know they are not. You know best, sir, what reason you have to be thankful."
"I'm nothing but bruises and aches all over my body. I'm by no means well, and I've lost all my luggage, and papers, and money, since one o'clock yesterday, when I was flourishing. Two or three such reasons for thankfulness would inevitably finish me."
"All except you were drowned, sir," said the doctor, who was known in Cardyllion as a serious-minded man, a little severely.
"Like so many rats in a trap, poor devils," acquiesced the stranger. "They were hatched down. I was the only passenger on deck. I must have been drowned if I had been among them."
"All those poor fellow-passengers of yours," said Doctor Mervyn, in disgust, "had souls, sir, to be saved."
"I suppose so; but I never saw such an assemblage of snobs in my life. I really think that, except poor Haworth—he insisted it would be ever so much pleasanter than the railway; I did not find it so; he's drowned of course—I assure you, except ourselves, there was not a gentleman among them. And Sparks, he's drowned too, and I've lost the best servant I ever had in my life. But I beg your pardon, I'm wasting your time. Do you think I'm ill?"
He extended his wrist, languidly, to enable the doctor to feel his pulse. The physician suppressed his rising answer with an effort, and made his examination.
"Well, sir, you have had a shock."