“Sleeping soundly. He has passed a good night. If he can only get over the next few days, the tropical sun will set him to rights.” “Is he awake now?” “I think not. But we’ll go and see if you like.” The captain threw away his cigar and followed Mr. Sherman below, not, however, before casting a look above and around, and singing out to the man at the wheel to “keep her at that.” Opening the cabin door they crept to the bunk and stood looking at the sleeping man, who, aroused perhaps by the magnetic influence of four eyes upon him, started and stared up at them from his pillow. Captain Duff drew back a step, scared a little by the wild gaze that Holdsworth fixed upon him, and which was made in some measure repellent by his gaunt and wasted face, and by the pitiable expression of bewilderment that passed slowly into it, and made it almost as meaningless as an idiot’s. “How do you feel, my poor fellow?” asked Mr. Sherman; “stronger, I hope?” Holdsworth made no answer, but knitted his brow with an air of profound perplexity, gazed slowly round him, then attentively at Mr. Sherman, then at the skipper, then at himself, finally pressing his hand to his head. “How do you know he is English? Perhaps he don’t understand you,” said Captain Duff. “I heard him mutter in English before I joined you last night,” answered Mr. Sherman. “Pray tell me where I am?” said Holdsworth, in a faint voice. “That’s English!” exclaimed the captain, though he looked as if he must take a thought of it yet, before he should allow himself to feel sure. “You are among friends,” replied Mr. Sherman softly, and in a voice full of sympathy; “on board a vessel called the ‘Jessie Maxwell,’ bound to Australia. We sighted your boat yesterday morning.” “My boat!” whispered Holdsworth, with an expression on his face of such deep bewilderment that it was painful to behold it. “Do you not remember?” “My boat! my boat!” repeated Holdsworth; but no light came into his eyes to show that he apprehended the other’s meaning. “He has lost his memory,” said Mr. Sherman aside to the captain. And then to Holdsworth: “Do you feel as if you could eat anything?” “Yes, I am hungry,” answered Holdsworth. “That is a good sign!” exclaimed Mr. Sherman, cheerfully. “Captain, will you stop here a few minutes, while I ask the steward to get the soup heated?” The skipper, being left alone, stationed himself near the door, and watched Holdsworth with mixed emotions. Brave to foolhardiness in a gale of wind, on a lee-shore, in confronting a mutinous crew, in dealing with the severest of marine exigencies, this little gentleman, in some trivial matters, was as timorous as a mouse, and would have made his escape overboard, rather than be grasped by Holdsworth, who, if he were not the dissembled madman his ragged, withered face suggested him to be, was still hedged about with enough of mysterious and secret horror to make him awful in the practical little Scotchman’s eyes.