You think this a far-fetched coincidence, good reader!  Well, all we can say is that we could tell you of another—­a double—­coincidence, which was far more extraordinary than this one, but as it has nothing to do with our tale we refrain from inflicting it on you.

CHAPTER XXVI.

A CLIMAX.

Three of those who had tumbled thus unceremoniously on the deck of the Sunshine were soon sufficiently recovered to sit up and look around in dazed astonishment—­namely Nigel, Moses, and the monkey—­but the hermit still lay prone where he had been cast, with a pretty severe wound on his head, from which blood was flowing freely.

“Nigel, my boy!”

“Father!” exclaimed the youth.  “Where am I?  What has happened?”

“Don’t excite yourself, lad,” said the mariner, stooping and whispering into his son’s ear.  “We’ve got her aboard!”

No treatment could have been more effectual in bringing Nigel to his senses than this whisper.

“Is—­is—­Van der Kemp safe?” he asked anxiously.

“All right—­only stunned, I think.  That’s him they’re just goin’ to carry below.  Put ’im in my bunk, Mr. Moor.”

“Ay ay, sir.”

Nigel sprang up.  “Stay, father,” he said in a low voice. “She must not see him for the first time like this.”

“All right, boy.  I understand.  You leave that to me.  My bunk has bin shifted for’id—­more amidships—­an’ Kathy’s well aft.  They shan’t be let run foul of each other.  You go an’ rest on the main hatch till we get him down.  Why, here’s a nigger!  Where did you pick him—­oh!  I remember.  You’re the man we met, I suppose, wi’ the hermit on Krakatoa that day o’ the excursion from Batavia.”

“Yes, das me.  But we’ll meet on Krakatoa no more, for dat place am blown to bits.”

“I’m pretty well convinced o’ that by this time, my man.  Not hurt much, I hope?”

“No, sar—­not more ‘n I can stan’.  But I’s ’fraid dat poor Spinkie’s a’most used up—­hallo! what you gwine to do with massa?” demanded the negro, whose wandering faculties had only in part returned.

“He’s gone below.  All right.  Now, you go and lie down beside my son on the hatch.  I’ll see to Van der Kemp.”

But Captain David Roy’s intentions, like those of many men of greater note, were frustrated by the hermit himself, who recovered consciousness just as the four men who carried him reached the foot of the companion-ladder close to the cabin door.  Owing to the deeper than midnight darkness that prevailed a lamp was burning in the cabin—­dimly, as if, infected by the universal chaos, it were unwilling to enlighten the surrounding gloom.

On recovering consciousness Van der Kemp was, not unnaturally, under the impression that he had fallen into the hands of foes.  With one effectual convulsion of his powerful limbs he scattered his bearers right and left, and turning—­like all honest men—­to the light, he sprang into the cabin, wrenched a chair from its fastenings, and, facing round, stood at bay.