During a whole hour Patrick Onslow lodged behind that iron pillar, a mere boneless mass of flesh and clothes; and then the pains of life came into him again with shivers and shudderings. The thin gray light of the dawn was filtering down through the jagged opening above when first the trembling lids slid from his eyeballs; but for still another thirty minutes he was a thing of no wit, breathing truly, but caring naught for all the world contained. Then a sucking, sobbing noise from the depths of the hold far beneath broke upon his ear, and the languid brain began to work. With an effort he sat up, dizzily holding to the pillar, trying to think where he was, and how ran recent history; and by degrees the details strolled back to him. Before, however, he had gathered all his senses, or a working quantum of strength, he had a visitor in the shape of the donkeyman, who clattered up over the decks with plate-shod boots, and crouched beside the gap above on knees and hands. “Have you been getting hurt, now?” inquired this new-comer. “About nine-tenths drowned, I fancy, if that counts. But I’m pretty near all right again now.” “Ye don’t look ut,” replied the donkeyman candidly. “Barrin’ the tan, ye’d be blue and lard color about the face this minute. But I feared there was something wrong through not seeing ye on the bridge, so I nipped into the chart-room and pockutted a whisky-bottle that was lying convenient—in case. Pull at the small end, sor.” The bottle was handed down, and Onslow lifted it, his teeth chattering against the nozzle like castanets; but the spirit drove up color into his face, and set the sluggish blood once more on its appointed journey through his limbs and trunk. “What has happened since I left you?” he asked. “Well, first, sor, the captain and meself had a little friendly discussion about what’s been happening, and came to a bit of a financial agreement. But I will say that I figured me new terms very low when I understood it was a thrifle of a conspiracy that ye wanted me to stand in at. And then, sor, we went below to the engine-room and turned steam into the bilge pumps, to heave this nasty slop of water overboard; after which, as chief, I set about making a thrifting repair to the low-pressure engine. Ye see, when that explosion took place, a bit of a casting jumped into the crank-pit, and got jammed there hard before they could stop her. I’ve had a fair do at elbow work, cutting it out cold; but it’s clear now, and she runs as sweetly as she did the day she left the shops. But oh, Mr. Onslow, I wish you could see the Old Man. The sight of that little chap, shoveling coals, and swearing, and tumbling, and burning himself, is enough to make the ghosts of some dead firemen I know about grin and dance sand-jigs in their graves.”