dived, reared, and plunged. Like a hooked fish, she flung herself
in the air, quivering from bow to stern. No longer was David of a
mind to sue the filibusters if they did not put him ashore. If
only they had put him ashore, in gratitude he would have crawled
on his knees. What followed was of no interest to David, nor to
many of the filibusters, nor to any of the Cuban patriots. Their
groans of self-pity, their prayers and curses in eloquent
Spanish, rose high above the crash of broken crockery and the
pounding of the waves. 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.
Sometimes he woke to a dull consciousness of his position. At
such moments he added to his misery by speculating upon the other
misfortunes that might have befallen him on shore. Emily, he
decided, had given him up for lost and married--probably a navy
officer in command of a battle-ship. Burdett and Sons had cast