When Florence finally opened her eyes the gray of dawn lay upon the sea, dotted here and there by the schooners of the fleet, which seemed to be hanging in midair, as at the moment there was visible to the eye no horizon. "Don't seem t' recognize nothin'." "Mebbe she's got a fever," suggested the mate, rubbing his bristly chin. "Fever nothin'! Not after bein' in th' water half an hour. Mebbe she hit one o' them wooden floats we left. Them dinged liners keep on crowdin' us," growled Barnes, with a fisherman's hate for the floating hotels. "Went by without a toot. See 'er, jes' like the banker's wife goin' t' church on Sunday? A mile a minute; fog or no fog, it's all the same t' them. They run us down and never stop. What th' tarnation we goin' to do? She'll haff t' stay aboard till th' run is over. I can't afford t' yank up my mudhook this time o' day." "Guess she can stand three 'r four days in our company, smellin' oilcloths, fish, kerosene, an' punk t'bacco." "If y' don't like th' kind o' t'bacco I buy buy your own. I ain't objectin' none." The mate stepped over to the bunk and gingerly ran his hand over the girl's head. "Cod's whiskers, Cap'n, they's a bump as big's a cork on th' back o' her head! She's struck one o' them floats all right. Where's the arnica?" Barnes turned to his locker and rummaged about, finally producing an ancient bottle and some passably clean cloth used frequently for bandages. Sometimes a man grew careless with his knife or got in the way of a pulley block. With blundering kindness the two men bound up the girl's head, and then went about their duties. For three days Florence evinced not the slightest inclination to leave the bunk. She lay on her back either asleep or with her eyes staring at the beams above her head. She ate just enough to keep her alive; and the strong black coffee did nothing more than to make her wakeful. No one knew what the matter was. There was the bump, now diminished; but that it should leave her in this comatose state vastly puzzled the men. The truth is she had suffered a slight concussion of the brain, and this, atop of all the worry she had had for the last few weeks, was sufficient to cause this blankness of the mind. The final cod was cleaned and packed away in salt, the mudhook raised, and the schooner _Betty_ set her sails for the southwest. Barnes realized that to save the girl she must have a doctor who knew his business. Mrs. Barnes would know how to care for the girl, once she knew what the trouble was. There would be some news in the papers. A young and beautiful woman did not jump from a big Atlantic liner without the newspapers getting hold of the facts. [Illustration: "A YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL WOMAN DID NOT JUMP FROM A BIG ATLANTIC LINER WITHOUT THE NEWSPAPERS GETTING HOLD OF THE FACTS"]