The setting sun now throws but slanting rays upon the bosom of the ocean.  It must be about six o’clock in the evening.  I take out my watch and it marks thirteen minutes past six.

As I have already mentioned, I waited for the door of my prison to open, thoroughly resolved not to fall asleep again, but to spring upon the first person who entered and force him to answer my questions.  I was not aware then that it was day, but it was, and hour after hour passed and no one came.  I began to suffer again from hunger and thirst, for I had not preserved either bite or sup.

As soon as I awoke I felt that the ship was in motion again, after having, I calculated, remained stationary since the previous day—­no doubt in some lonely creek, since I had not heard or felt her come to anchor.

A few minutes ago—­it must therefore have been six o’clock—­I again heard footsteps on the other side of the iron wall of my compartment.  Was anybody coming to my cell?  Yes, for I heard the creaking of the bolts as they were drawn back, and then the door opened, and the darkness in which I had been plunged since the first hour of my captivity was illumined by the light of a lantern.

Two men, whom I had no time to look at, entered and seized me by the arms.  A thick cloth was thrown over my head, which was enveloped in such a manner that I could see absolutely nothing.

What did it all mean?  What were they going to do with me?  I struggled, but they held me in an iron grasp.  I questioned them, but they made no reply.  The men spoke to each other in a language that I could not understand, and had never heard before.

They stood upon no ceremony with me.  It is true I was only a madhouse warder, and they probably did not consider it necessary to do so; but I question very much whether Simon Hart, the engineer, would have received any more courtesy at their hands.

This time, however, no attempt was made to gag me nor to bind either my arms or legs.  I was simply restrained by main force from breaking away from them.

In a moment I was dragged out of the compartment and pushed along a narrow passage.  Next, the steps of a metallic stairway resounded under our feet.  Then the fresh air blew in my face and I inhaled it with avidity.

Finally they took their hands from off me, and I found myself free.  I immediately tore the cloth off my head and gazed about me.

I am on board a schooner which is ripping through the water at a great rate and leaving a long white trail behind her.

I had to clutch at one of the stays for support, dazzled as I was by the light after my forty-eight hours’ imprisonment in complete obscurity.

On the deck a dozen men with rough, weather-beaten faces come and go—­very dissimilar types of men, to whom it would be impossible to attribute any particular nationality.  They scarcely take any notice of me.

As to the schooner, I estimate that she registers from two hundred and fifty to three hundred tons.  She has a fairly wide beam, her masts are strong and lofty, and her large spread of canvas must carry her along at a spanking rate in a good breeze.