"Bo'sun," I cried huskily, "she ... she is ... saved ... I am dying, I think.... God bless her! and ... and ... your hand, mate...."
I remember uttering these incoherent words and seeing the boatswain spring forward to catch me. Then my senses left me with a flash.
[CHAPTER XI.]
I remained, as I was afterwards informed, insensible for four days, during which time I told and re-told in my delirium the story of the mutiny and our own sufferings, so that, as the ship's surgeon assured me, he became very exactly acquainted with all the particulars of the Grosvenor's voyage, from the time of her leaving the English Channel to the moment of our rescue from the boat, though I, from whom he learnt the story, was insensible as I related it. My delirium even embraced so remote an incident as the running down of the smack.
When I opened my eyes I found myself in a small, very comfortable cabin, lying in a bunk; and being alone, I had no knowledge of where I was, nor would my memory give me the slightest assistance. That every object my eye rested upon was unfamiliar, and that I was on board a ship, was all that I knew for certain. What puzzled me most was the jarring sound caused by the engines. I could not conceive what this meant nor what produced it; and the vessel being perfectly steady, it was not in my power to realize that I was being borne over the water.
I closed my eyes and lay perfectly still, striving to master the past and inform myself of what had become of me; but so hopelessly muddled was my brain, that had some unseen person, by way of a joke, told me in a sepulchral voice that I was dead and apprehending the things about me only by means of my spirit, which had not yet had time to get out of my body, I should have believed him; though I don't say that I should not have been puzzled to reconcile my very keen appetite and thirst with my non-existent condition.
In a few minutes the door of the cabin was opened and a jolly, red-faced man, wearing a Scotch cap, looked in. Seeing me with my eyes open, he came forward and exclaimed in a cheerful voice—
"All alive O! Staring about you full of wonderment! Nothing so good as curiosity in a sick man. Shows that the blood is flowing."