The “Jessie Maxwell” was now in the hot latitudes. The fourth day was lovely, with a north-east breeze on the port quarter, and a burning sun, from which an awning protected the deck. An easy chair was placed near the skylight for Holdsworth, who gained the deck, leaning on Mr. Sherman’s arm. He halted on the last step of the companion-ladder, and clung to his friend with a look of mingled surprise and fear in his face. Had there been any one, among those who watched him with curiosity, who had known him as the chief mate of the “Meteor,” he could scarcely have contemplated this wreck of a man without deep emotion. Conceive, if you can, a face with every characteristic that had once contributed to give it manly beauty, wrung out of it by sufferings which had left ineffaceable marks on every inch of the whole surface of the countenance. Conceive a stooped and trembling figure, the shoulders forward so as to hollow the chest, and the back bowed like an old man’s, the arms lengthened by the abnormal attitude and defeating every faint suggestion of symmetry which the eye might still hope to find. But this expresses nothing of the real transformation that had been wrought; of that subtle modification of expression, of the spiritual conditions of the face, of changes achieved by the most delicate strokes, but which were as effectual as a recasting of the whole figure and countenance could have been. He was dressed partly in his own clothes, partly in some of the clothes belonging to the second mate, who was a slight man, but whose garments hung loosely on Holdsworth. He wore his own coat, which formerly had buttoned tight across his chest, and which his muscular arms had filled out, as the fingers a glove; and he could now have buttoned it nearly twice around him. The ring that he had worn on his left hand had slipped from his skeleton finger long ago, when he had been splashing the sea-water over his face in vain endeavour to quench the burning agony in his head and throat. He might have worn Dolly’s wedding-ring on his middle finger now, for his hands were indeed scarcely more than bone. Mr. Sherman eyed him anxiously as he stood tottering at the companion-hatchway. It seemed as if the long-desired revelation had come to the suffering man, and that he could now remember. “Look about you,” he said, “and tell me if there is anything you see that recalls old impressions.” “I see nothing that does this,” replied Holdsworth in a low voice. “Where is the boat I was taken from?” “On the main-deck yonder.” “I should like to see her,” said Holdsworth eagerly. “_One_ idea may light up all.”