My appeal was in vain. Lafitte still stood silent, and the men turned to stare shamefaced at the guns of the frigate. I stepped back to catch up a marlin-spike, but the British crimps were too well trained in their despicable business. They sprang at and about me in a body. I struck out right and left; then a belaying-pin crashed upon my head with stunning force. When I recovered consciousness, I found myself swinging in a sailor's hammock that was suspended from the beams of a low wooden ceiling. I felt strangely weak and faint, but made shift to turn my head enough to see that I was in a long, wide space between decks. The rows of cannon resting each before its open port roused in me a sort of dull, vague wonderment. A puff of salt sea air through the nearest port tempered the suffocating heat of the place and revived me to a clearer self-consciousness, though all my memory seemed, as it were, wrapped in a gray mist. The first clear idea was that there was about my neck something precious which must not be lost. I fumbled about with a feeble hand, and drew out the rosary and cross from the open bosom of my shirt. I was gazing at this, still bewildered, when there came to my side a dried-up, kindly faced, bespectacled little gentleman who, at sight of my open eyes, nodded and chirruped almost gayly: "Ahoy, Jack! Pleased to see your wits out of limbo! You've had a narrow squeak of it, my man." "Who are you? Where am I?" I murmured. He took a pinch of snuff, sneezed with hearty enjoyment, and then answered me with genial condescension: "In due order, Jack, I reply that I am Dr. Cuthbert, surgeon to His Majesty's frigate _Belligerent_, of whose crew you are a member." I stared at him, my memory still in that gray mist. Seeing my bewilderment, he was thoughtful enough to explain: "You were so foolish as to resist, my man, when Midshipman Hepburn impressed you. Either the blow which stunned you, or the close air of the forecastle, or the seeds of disease in your system, brought on a fever and delirium in which you have lain for the past fortnight." "Fortnight!" I gasped. "But--I remember now--I must get to Vera Cruz--Vera Cruz! Fortnight! What is the date?" "August the ninth." I groaned. "Vera Cruz?" he cackled. "Why should you wish to go to Vera Cruz?" I put my hand to my head, and tried to think--to penetrate that gray mist. "I cannot remember--I cannot remember--only I know I must go--at once--and it has to do with this cross." "Eh! eh!" he cackled. "I thought there was something in that rosary. Third mates of merchantmen do not usually go about with Romish crucifixes and beads about their necks. Your name?" I opened my lips, but not a syllable came from them. I racked my brains, groping in that terrible mist of oblivion. It was in vain. I could not remember my own name!