Thereupon I saw my father perform a feat of strength and endurance which, strong as he was, utterly astonished me. Throwing off his oilskins, he bent down, and, hauling his brother's inanimate form upon his broad back, raised himself and set off at a rapid pace towards Fowey, I struggling in the rear, though I carried nothing but his discarded coat. Up the steep path he pressed, without pausing a moment; as sure-footed as a goat he trod the narrow way, made additionally dangerous by reason of the slime, and, in less than half an hour, gained the town, never resting till he placed his burden on the steps of the ferry. Willing hands helped us lift my uncle out of the boat, and, accompanied by a doctor, and followed by a pair of reporters and a knot of curious onlookers, the little procession reached my father's house, my uncle's strange escape from the sea being a subject of much conjecture and not a little romance. "Absolute quietness is essential," was the doctor's mandate, and in obedient silence our neighbours went away, the reporters following, on hearing that no details were forthcoming, to prepare a column of sensational copy based on the flimsiest material imaginable. Worn out with my night's vigil, I turned in before noon and slept like a top till the following morning. My father watched by the patient's bedside till nearly midnight, when, satisfied that there was no cause for serious anxiety, and that the expected symptoms of brain fever had not shown themselves, he allowed himself to be persuaded to snatch a few hours' sleep; but before I was awake he was up and about, showing no signs of the physical and mental strain he had undergone. Uncle Herbert, too, was awake, and beyond complaining of a slight stiffness, refused to admit that he was ill. No mention of the shipwreck had passed between the brothers, but my father, taking me aside, told me that it was surmised that the unfortunate ship was the "Andrea Doria," that being the name painted on a couple of lifebuoys and a shattered whaler that had been washed ashore at Pridmouth Bay, and that my uncle was the only survivor. "The only survivor?" I repeated. "Then where did that foreign-looking sailor come from?" "What foreign sailor was that?" inquired my father, and, having told him of my encounter with the mysterious stranger on the cliff, he remarked-- "I wonder what his little game is." The doctor called again in the afternoon and pronounced his patient out of danger; and, free from the ban of silence, Uncle Herbert began his narrative. Chapter III UNCLE HERBERT'S NARRATIVE