The transformation was appalling.

The uncombed locks, the sunken eyes, the pallid, fleshless cheeks, the sharp features, and the anxious, agonized expression caused by continual pain, all seemed to have been suddenly created by the spell of some malignant enchanter.

I did not venture to take a second look, and no longer wondered at the gloomy prediction of my companions.
The next day I found myself growing worse, and the pain increasing; and, notwithstanding my determination to recover and falsify the prediction of my unfeeling shipmates, I should undoubtedly have followed the dark path which thousands of my young countrymen, sick and neglected in a foreign land, had trod before, had I not received aid from an unexpected quarter.

I was crawling along the main deck, near the gangway, when Mr.
Parker, the supercargo, came on board.

As he stepped over the gunwale, my appearance, fortunately for me, arrested his attention.