“From the wharf, you say?  He was not aboard then?  Santa Maria!  I know not what that may mean.  Yet what difference, so he be dead.  Anderson, Mendez, throw that carrion overboard—­no, bullies, never mind; let them lie where they are, and sink an auger in the sloop’s bottom.  That will settle the whole matter.  What is that out yonder, Cochose?”

“A small boat, Senor—­a dory, I make it.”

“Cut the rope, and send it adrift.  Now come along with me.”

The darker loom of the sloop vanished slowly, as the slight current sweeping about the end of the wharf drifted the released boat to which I clung outward into the Bay.  The faint echo of a voice floated to my ears across the widening expanse of water, and then all was silent as the night closed in darkly between.  There was scarcely a ripple to the sea, and yet I felt that the boat was steadily drifting out into deeper water.  I was still strangely weak, barely able to retain my grasp, with a peculiar dullness in my head, which made me fearful that at any moment I might let go.  I was not even conscious of thinking, or capable of conceiving clearly my situation, yet I must have realized vaguely the immediate necessity of action, for finally I mustered every ounce of remaining energy in one supreme effort, and succeeded in dragging my body up out of water over the boat’s stern, sinking helplessly forward into the bottom.  The moment this was accomplished every sense deserted me, and I lay there motionless, totally unconscious.

I shall never know how long I remained thus, the little dory in which I lay rocked aimlessly about by the waves, and constantly drifting in the grasp of unseen currents farther and farther out into the Bay.  The blackness of the night swallowed us, as tossed by wind and sea, we were borne on through the waste unguided.  Yet this time could not have been great.  As though awakening from sleep a faint consciousness returned, causing me to lift my head, and stare hopelessly about into the curtain of mist overhanging the water.  At first, with nothing surrounding to awaken memory into action, only that dull vista of sea and sky, my mind refused to respond to any impression; then the sharp pain of my wounds, accented by the sting of salt water, brought me swift realization of where I was, and the circumstances bringing me there.  My wet clothing had partially dried on my body as I lay there motionless in the bottom of the boat, and now, with every movement, chafed the raw spots, rendering the slightest motion a physical agony.  I had evidently lost considerable blood, yet this had already ceased to flow, and a very slight examination served to convince me that the knife slashes were none of them serious.  Beyond these punctures of the flesh, while I ached from head to foot, my other injuries were merely bruises to add to my discomfort—­the result of blows dealt me by Sanchez and Cochose, aggravated by the bearlike hug of the giant negro.  Indeed, I awoke to the discovery that I was far from being a dead man; and, inspired by this knowledge, the various incidents of the night flashed swiftly back into my mind.  How long had I been lying there unconscious, adrift in the open boat?  How far had we floated from land?  Where were we now, and in the meantime what had occurred ashore?