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This much I heard the sailor tell, and then stopped him, for he was tired. The woman still sleeps and has showed no signs of consciousness.

March 14.–The sailor, whose name is Richard Jones, was able to crawl out on deck this morning. He completed his story. The young woman, he said, was the only passenger on the Vulture. He did not know her name. It had been talked among the crew that she was going out to her lover, an officer in the Indian Army who had been wounded; that she would not wait for the regular East Indiaman, but had managed to secure passage on the Vulture. When she realized that she and the sailor, Jones, were the only ones alive of all those that had been on the vanished ship, and that they were quite alone on the ocean, in a small boat, without oars, or sail, or food, or drink, she cried a little and wrung her hands and became very quiet. She took her place in the bow, and there she sat. Jones sat in the stern and paddled clear of the wreckage, and then, using the piece of board for a rudder, kept the boat before the wind. Luckily there was very little sea. He thought that they were in the track of Indiamen, and so kept good hope. He tried to encourage the young woman, but she seemed to prefer silence, and so he kept still. Thus they drifted. The sun beat down upon their unprotected heads. They began to want for water. They did not think so much of food as of water. Jones doesn’t know how long they were adrift. He doesn’t know when the girl lost consciousness. He remembers that one day she moaned a little, and in the night he thought that he heard her whispering to herself. He thought that she was praying, perhaps. Then he began to lose consciousness. He remembers seeing a beautiful green field, with trees, and a brook running through it. He says that men suffering from thirst on the ocean often have such visions. He remembers nothing else until he opened his eyes and saw me bending over him.

Uncle John reports no change in the condition of the young woman. She lies in a stupor, apparently. The pulse daily grows stronger, he says, and she swallows freely the nourishment administered.

III.

April 2.–It is more than two weeks since I wrote in my journal. I have been ill–a sort of low fever that kept me in my cabin. Nothing serious, Uncle John said, and so it has proved, except that I am very weak. Uncle has been kind, but most of his time has been devoted to that woman. He says that it is a very interesting case. She became conscious a few days ago, and has gained strength since. She will be on deck in a day or two, he thinks. I’m anxious to see her. I want to see if there really is anything familiar in her face. It’s fortunate for her that clothing of Mrs. Raymond’s is on board. She’d be in a plight, else. I asked Uncle John what her name was. He looked queer, and said that he didn’t know. Strange that he hasn’t asked her. The sailor, Jones, seems quite recovered and has taken his place among the crew. We were rather short-handed, and the captain was glad enough to have him. He can be of service. But the woman can be nothing but a trouble, to me at least, for I must see her daily, I suppose. And yet I am anxious to see her, too. This fever has left me rather childish as well as weak.

April 3.–Thank God for these pages to which I can talk, else I should go mad, I think. Could you read these words as they flow from my pen, mother, you might well wonder whether I had not indeed gone mad. But I will be quite calm while I tell of what fate, or Satan, or whatever evil power it is, has done for me. I was sitting on the deck this morning, still very weak, when I heard footsteps behind me, and Uncle John’s voice saying, “Good-morning, Arthur.” I turned and saw him standing near me, and leaning on his arm Helen Rankine! I write these words calmly enough now. Can you imagine what I felt when I saw her? I staggered to my feet, muttered some incoherent words, and would have fallen had not Uncle John sprang to my side and caught me. “Why, what’s the matter, Arthur? Calm yourself, my boy. Is it possible that you know this young lady?”