But the steering wheel was aft, a side steerer attached to the coaming--the port coaming at that, and right to my hand. I grabbed that wheel, and flung it around desperately, in the second I had before the hydroplane shot from us. She didn’t veer far from her course of intended destruction; but it was enough, and I had the inner glow of satisfaction for the one instant that was allowed me before I met him as he turned and gripped me in deadly embrace. In an iron clutch I felt myself borne bodily aloft. I struck the water breathless, and I cannot swim. CHAPTER VIII. IN STRANGE QUARTERS. I have my own theory as to just what becomes of us when we--the real, thinking we, that is--enter that somewhat uncanny realm which men have agreed to let ignorance call unconsciousness. But this is neither the time nor place to air it. Sufficient to state, now, that from the moment I felt the chill of the waters of the bay, and strangled in its brine, I knew nothing of what we name actuality until I was sensible of an easy, steady sway of body as I was rocked cradlewise. A distinctly delicious semiconsciousness made me forget a decided stiffness and cramp of muscle, and it was with reluctance that I opened a tentative eye. I am not ordinarily one of those who jump up immediately upon wakening, anyway. And slowly it was that the nature of my surroundings came to me. A faint swish directly beside the bunk whereon I found I was lying proved to come from a hung-up suit of Cape Ann oilskins; and a further exploring peek beyond revealed several rows of bunks like my own. A ladder of steep incline, topped by a hatch; a semicircle of seat lockers; tar in the air, and a faint reek of bilge--the combination ended all conjecture. A hearty chuckle from directly alongside my head made me up-on-elbow for a nearer scan of the chuckler. I have never seen a bundle of more jovial rotundity, or a larger. A perfect giant of a man he was, with good nature popping from him. And a sailor he was to the gnarled crooks of his “fishhook” fingers, which at this moment were ramming home a husky charge of palm-rolled cut plug into a broken-stemmed “ha’penny clay.” “Ho, ho!” he burbled when he saw that I had caught sight of him. “An’ where away now, m’ bucko?” I passed a hand over my features, and my question was trite enough: “Where am I?” Again merriment rippled in folds up and down him as he replied: “On board the _Ruby Light_, m’ lad, and a better vessel’s keel was never laid!” “_Ruby Light?_” I echoed hesitatingly, for a bit of mistiness still held me. “Why, I thought--that is----” “That is,” he rumbled gleefully, “this here’s about the last place you expected ter come ter life in. An’ mebbe it are jest about the last place you’d ’a’ picked out. He, he! Shouldn’t wonder, m’ lad, shouldn’t wonder!” And he drifted off into a falsetto titter. But there certainly was no malice in his merriment; it seemed rather to make me a comrade.