There was the home-made galley we had built, the familiar break of the poop, the low yacht-cabin scarcely rising above the rail.
It was the _Ghost_.
What freak of fortune had brought it here--here of all spots?
what chance of chances?
I looked at the bleak, inaccessible wall at my back and know the profundity of despair.

Escape was hopeless, out of the question.

I thought of Maud, asleep there in the hut we had reared; I remembered her "Good-night, Humphrey"; "my woman, my mate," went ringing through my brain, but now, alas, it was a knell that sounded.

Then everything went black before my eyes.
Possibly it was the fraction of a second, but I had no knowledge of how long an interval had lapsed before I was myself again.

There lay the _Ghost_, bow on to the beach, her splintered bowsprit projecting over the sand, her tangled spars rubbing against her side to the lift of the crooning waves.