Returned on board, after a glance at his still-sleeping patient,--who lay so motionless that, but for the slight, slow rise and fall of the blankets over her bosom, one might have deemed her dead,--he set to the making of as tempting a soup as rabbit and rice could furnish, and regretted, more sorely than ever before, his lack of salt and seasoning. Then he sat waiting for her to awake and for Macro to come home. If she did not wake of her own accord before sunset he decided to wake her himself. Sleep was without doubt the best of all restoratives, but Nature craves sustenance, and she was almost certainly starving. She would recover strength more quickly still if her system had something to draw upon. Then, too, they had no light but that of the fire. If she woke up in the dark she would be sorely exercised in her mind to know where she had got to. It would be better to satisfy her, mentally and bodily, while still there was daylight to see by. So, when the sun shone level through the western portholes, he went softly to where she lay, still sleeping soundly, and after watching her again for a moment, he placed his hand gently on her forehead. She frowned at the touch and moved uneasily among her blankets. Then the heavy eyes opened and she lay staring wonderingly up at him, evidently trying to piece past and present together, and to make out where she was. "Where am I? ... Who are you?" she jerked, in a voice that would have been rich and full if it had not been a little hoarse and husky. And the pink fingers grasped the blanket and drew it up under the rounded white chin. "You are quite safe on a ship. I am a doctor. I want you to eat some warm soup and then you shall sleep again as long as you can. Here is your night-rail, washed and dried; perhaps you would like to put it on. I will go and fetch the soup." When he came back presently she was visibly more at ease with her frills about her neck. She raised herself on her left elbow, and he placed the tin pannikin of soup in front of her, together with some broken biscuit. "Can you feed yourself?" he asked. "Oh, yes--if I had a spoon." "I am sorry to say we have no spoons." "No spoons?" and she stared at him in vast surprise. "Perhaps you can make shift to drink it out of the pannikin. You see----" "What a very odd ship--to have no spoons!" she took a sip of the soup and screwed up her lips. "Would you get me some salt, if you please? This soup----" "I'm sorry, but we have no salt either. You see----" "No salt?" and she shot another quick amazed look at him. "Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!" at which Wulfrey pricked up his ears. "Whatever kind of a ship--you did say a ship, did you not? Where is it going to?" "It's not going anywhere. You see, it's practically a stranded ship though it's really afloat----"