Then a low, grey mother-wave swung out of the fog, tucked Harvey under one arm, so to speak, and pulled him off and away to leeward; the great green closed over him, and he went quietly to sleep.
He was roused by the sound of a dinner-horn such as they used to blow at a summer-school he had once attended in the Adirondacks.

Slowly he remembered that he was Harvey Cheyne, drowned and dead in mid-ocean, but was too weak to fit things together.

A new smell filled his nostrils; wet and clammy chills ran down his back, and he was helplessly full of salt water.

When he opened his eyes, he perceived that he was still on the top of the sea, for it was running round him in silver-coloured hills, and he was lying on a pile of half-dead fish, looking at a broad human back clothed in a blue jersey.
"It's no good," thought the boy.

"I'm dead, sure enough, and this thing is in charge." He groaned, and the figure turned its head, showing a pair of little gold rings half hidden in curly black hair.
"Aha! You feel some pretty well now' ?" it said.