As he spoke the admiral rose to his feet and gave place to Emily. Very gently the girl did as the old man bade her, and presently the man extended before her opened his eyes and stared up at her vacantly, wonderingly, for a few moments at first, and then, with a dawning light of recognition in his eyes, he smiled faintly as he remembered. His first words might have been considered flippant, unworthy of the situation, but to the girl they seemed not inappropriate. "The blue-eyed water-witch!" he murmured. "To be saved by you," he continued, half jestingly,--it was a brave heart which could find place for pleasantry then, she thought,--"and then to find you smiling above me." At these whispered words what he still lacked in color flickered into Emily's face, and as he gazed steadily upon her, the flicker became a flame which suffused her cheeks. He had noticed her even in those death-fronting moments on the wreck. "Are you better now?" she asked him in her confusion. "Better, miss?" he answered, softly, yet not striving to rise; "I am well again. I came down to----" "Silence, lad, silence fore and aft! Belay all until the surgeon comes, and you shall tell us all about it then," interrupted the admiral. "He'll be here in a moment now, I think, if Barry have good luck. Will you have another swallow of whiskey?" "No, sir, thank you; I've had enough." At that moment the sailor entered the hall, fairly dragging the fat little doctor in his wake. "I fell foul of him just outside of the yard, your honor," said Barry, as he appeared in the door-way. "'Fell foul of me!' I should think you did! You fell on me like a storm," cried the doctor, dropping his wet cloak in the passage-way and bustling into the room. "What is it, admiral? Are you----?" "I'm all right, doctor." "It's not Miss Emily?" "No, sir; I'm all right, too; but----" "Oho!" said the doctor, his glance at last falling to the man extended on the floor; "this is the patient, is it? Well, young man, you look rather damp, I am sure. What's up?" "Nothing seems to be up, sir," answered the man, smilingly, amusedly. "I seem to be down, though." "I guess you're in pretty good shape, sir," said the doctor, laughingly, "if you can joke about it; and if you are down now, we'll soon have you up." As he spoke, the physician knelt and examined his patient carefully. "How did it happen, Miss Emily?" he asked, as he proceeded with his investigations. "Why, doctor, we picked him up out of the water." "We?" "Yes, sir. Captain Barry and I." "My sloop was wrecked on the rocks beyond the old ship," said the young man; "and when this young lady came along in a boat I jumped, and as I am not quite recovered from a wound I got at Mobile Bay, I suppose I lost consciousness from the shock. I'm all right now, though." "I think so, too," said the doctor; "we'll get these wet clothes off you in a jiffy, and then I'll give you something, and in the morning you'll hardly know you've been in danger."