quivering in his brain, while the club, flying from his relaxed grasp, caught me on the left forearm, which I had instinctively flung up to defend myself, snapping the bone like a carrot, and then whirling over and catching me a blow upon the head that stretched me senseless. But before I fell I had become conscious that through the distracting noises of the fight that raged around me I could hear the sound of renewed firing spluttering out from the direction of the boats. When my senses returned to me the day was apparently some three or four hours old, for the shadows of certain objects upon which my eyes happened to fall as I first opened them were, if anything, a trifle shorter than the objects themselves, which was a sure indication that the sun stood high in the heavens. I was lying, with a number of other people, in the large tent-like structure which the ward-room officers had used on the preceding evening; and Hutchinson, the ship's surgeon, was busily engaged in attending to the hurts of a seaman who lay not far from me. This was the first general impression that I gained of my surroundings with the recovery of consciousness; the next was that my left arm, which was throbbing and burning with a dull, aching pain from wrist to shoulder, was firmly bound up and strapped tightly to my body, and that my head, which also ached most abominably, was likewise swathed in bandages. I was parched with thirst, which was increased by the sound of a man drinking eagerly at no great distance from me, and, turning my head painfully in the direction of the sound, I saw Jack Keene, a fellow-mid., administering drink out of a tin pannikin to a man whom I presently recognised as Nugent, the master's mate, who, poor fellow, seemed to be pretty near his last gasp. "Jack," I called feebly, "you might bring me a drink presently, when you have finished with Nugent, will you? How are you feeling, Nugent? Not very badly hurt, I hope." I saw Nugent's lips move, as though attempting to answer me, but no sound came from them, while Keene, glancing towards me, shook his head and laid his finger upon his lips as a sign, I took it, that I should not attempt to engage the poor fellow in conversation. "All right, Fortescue," he said, in a low voice, "I'll attend to you in a brace of shakes." He laid Nugent's head very gently back upon a jacket which had been folded to serve as a pillow, and then, refilling the pannikin from a bucket which stood close at hand, he came to me. "Feeling bad, old chap?" he asked, as he raised my head and placed the pannikin to my lips. I emptied the pannikin before attempting to reply, and then said-- "Not so bad but that I might easily be a jolly sight worse. Bring me another drink, Jack, there's a good boy; that was like nectar."