I was received on the steamer with much cordiality and much questioning, but to none of it did I pay any attention.  I addressed the captain.

“Sir,” said I, “I will be obliged to you if you will immediately cruise to the southwest and pick up for me a life-preserver with a little white flag attached to it.  It also carries a message for me, wrapped up in a piece of oiled silk.  It is very important that I should obtain that message without delay.”

The captain laughed.  “Why, man!” said he, “what are you thinking of?  Do you suppose that I can go out of my course to cruise after a life-preserver?”

I looked at him with scorn.  “Unmanly fiend!” said I.

Another officer now approached, whom I afterward knew to be the ship’s doctor.

“Come, come now,” he said, “don’t let us have any hard words.  The captain is only joking.  Of course he will steam after your life-preserver, and no doubt will come up with it very soon.  In the mean-time you must come below and have something to eat and drink and rest yourself.”

Satisfied with this assurance, I went below, was given food and medicine, and was put into a berth, where I remained for four days in a half-insensible condition, knowing nothing—­caring for nothing.

When I came on deck again I was very weak, but I had regained my senses, and the captain and I talked rationally together.  I told him how I had come on board the Sparhawk, and how I had fallen in with the La Fidelite, half wrecked, having on board only a dear friend of mine.  In answer to his questions I described the details of the communications between the two vessels, and could not avoid mentioning the wild hopes and heart-breaking disappointments of that terrible time.  And, somewhat to my languid surprise, the captain asked no questions regarding these subjects.  I finished by thanking him for having taken me from the wreck, but added that I felt like a false-hearted coward for having deserted upon the sea the woman I loved, who now would never know my fate nor I hers.

“Don’t be too sure of that,” said the captain, “for you are about to hear from her now.”

I gazed at him in blank amazement.  “Yes,” said the captain, “I have seen her, and she has sent me to you.  But I see you are all knocked into a heap, and I will make the story as short as I can.  This vessel of mine is bound from Liverpool to La Guayra, and on the way down we called at Lisbon.  On the morning of the day I was to sail from there, there came into port the Glanford, a big English merchantman, from Buenos Ayres to London.  I knew her skipper, Captain Guy Chesters, as handsome a young English sailor as ever stood upon a deck.

“In less than an hour from the time we dropped anchor, Captain Guy was on my vessel.  He was on the lookout, he said, for some craft bound for South America or the West Indies, and was delighted to find me there.  Then he told me that, ten days before, he had taken two ladies from a half-wrecked French steamer, and that they had prayed and besought him to cruise about and look for the Sparhawk, a helpless ship, with a friend of theirs alone on board.