“I don’t know. It strikes me that he would be a valuable man for us. That was the nerviest performance I ever saw. Had I been told that any one could mix it that way with Oily Broderick and two guns, and get off with it scot-free except for this little love tap, I should never have believed it.” The voice was rich, clear, slow, well-modulated. “Perhaps he may be induced to join us. If not----” The words reached Jeff from immeasurable distances. He was floating on a particularly soft and billowy cloud at the time: a cloud with a buoyant and undulant motion, very soothing. Jeff noted it with approval. Underneath and a little ahead, a high and exceedingly steep mountain rose abruptly from the sea. It was built entirely of piled, roundish boulders. The contour seemed familiar. Madagascar, of course! How clever of him to remember! Jeff turned the cloud. It sank in slow and graceful spirals to the peak. Doubtless the voices came from there. The words seemed to have an unexplained connection with some circumstance that he could not quite recall. He felt the elusive memory slipping away. However, it made no difference. He drifted into a delicious vagueness. Something hard was forced between his teeth; a fiery liquid trickled down his throat. He gasped and struggled; his eyes fluttered open. To his intense disappointment the cloud was gone. An arm was propping him up. Mysterious blankets appeared before him from somewhere or other. On them lay an arm and a bandaged hand. The hand was hurting some one very much. Jeff wondered whose it was. He looked at the hand fixedly for a long time and, on further examination, found it to be his own. Here was a pretty state of affairs! A pillow was thrust behind him and the supporting arm withdrawn. At once he felt a throbbing pain in his head. He put his hand up and lo! his head was also heavily bandaged! He regretted Madagascar more than ever. He settled back for reflection. Looking up, after a little, he saw a chair with the back turned toward him; astride the chair, a middle-aged man, large, clean-shaven, rosy, well-dressed, and, as it seemed to Jeff, unnecessarily cheerful. His eyes twinkled; his hands, which were white and plump and well kept, played a little ditty on the chair-back. There was a ruby on one finger. Beyond him sat a gross, fat man with a stubbly beard, a coarse, flat nose and little, piggish, red eyes. His legs were crossed and he smoked a villainous pipe. There were other men behind these two. Jeff was just turning to look at them when his attention was recalled by a voice from the man astride the chair. “And how are we now, my young friend? A trifle dazed, I fancy? Something of a headache?” He showed his white teeth in a friendly smile; his voice was soft and playful. “Are we well enough to eat something? What with our recent disagreeable shock and our long abstinence from food, we must find ourself rather feeble.”