Even when the search-light gave way to a brilliant sunlight the circumstance was unobserved by David.

Nor was he concerned in the tidings brought forward by the youth in the golf cap, who raced the slippery decks and vaulted the prostrate forms as sure-footedly as a hurdler on a cinder track.

To David, in whom he seemed to think he had found a congenial spirit, he shouted Joyfully, "She's fired two blanks at us!" he cried; "now she's firing cannon-balls!" "Thank God," whispered David; "perhaps she'll sink us!" But The Three Friends showed her heels to the revenue cutter, and so far as David knew hours passed into days and days into weeks.

It was like those nightmares in which in a minute one is whirled through centuries of fear and torment.

Sometimes, regardless of nausea, of his aching head, of the hard deck, of the waves that splashed and smothered him, David fell into broken slumber.