face, his chin cocking up towards the sky, his eyes turned upwards to
the whites, and his mouth wide open showing a leathern crinkled tongue
like a rotting leaf. In the bows, all huddled in a heap, and with a
single paddle still grasped in his hand, there crouched a very small man
clad in black, an open book lying across his face, and one stiff leg
jutting upwards with the heel of the foot resting between the rowlocks.
So this strange company swooped and tossed upon the long green Atlantic
rollers.

A boat had been lowered by the _Golden Rod_, and the unfortunates were
soon conveyed upon deck. No particle of either food or drink was to be
found, nor anything save the single paddle and the open Bible which lay
across the small man's face. Man, woman, and child had all been dead a
day at the least, and so with the short prayers used upon the seas they
were buried from the vessel's side. The small man had at first seemed
also to be lifeless, but Amos had detected some slight flutter of his
heart, and the faintest haze was left upon the watch glass which was
held before his mouth. Wrapped in a dry blanket he was laid beside the
mast, and the mate forced a few drops of rum every few minutes between
his lips until the little spark of life which still lingered in him
might be fanned to a flame. Meanwhile Ephraim Savage had ordered up the
two prisoners whom he had entrapped at Honfleur. Very foolish they
looked as they stood blinking and winking in the daylight from which
they had been so long cut off.

"Very sorry, captain," said the seaman, "but either you had to come with
us, d'ye see, or we had to stay with you. They're waiting for me over
at Boston, and in truth I really couldn't tarry."

The French soldier shrugged his shoulders and looked around him with a