But I do know that you and I are still on earth in what remains of the saloon of the Star of the South." "Thank God for that! Let's go and look for old Bastin," said Bickley.

"I do pray that he is all right also." "It is most illogical of you, Bickley, and indeed wrong," groaned a deep voice from the other side of the cabin door, "to thank a God in Whom you do not believe, and to talk of praying for one of the worst and most inefficient of His servants when you have no faith in prayer." "Got you there, my friend," I said.
Bickley murmured something about force of habit, and looked smaller than I had ever seen him do before.
Somehow we forced that door open; it was not easy because it had jammed.
Within the cabin, hanging on either side of the bath towel which had stood the strain nobly, something like a damp garment over a linen line, was Bastin most of whose bunk seemed to have disappeared.

Yes--Bastin, pale and dishevelled and looking shrunk, with his hair touzled and his beard apparently growing all ways, but still Bastin alive, if very weak.
Bickley ran at him and made a cursory examination with his fingers.
"Nothing broken," he said triumphantly.

"He's all right." "If you had hung over a towel for many hours in most violent weather you would not say that," groaned Bastin.

"My inside is a pulp.