seasick, his pride made him go aft to the second-saloon deck at
the stern, which was finished in a turtle-back. The deck was
deserted, and he crawled to the extreme end of it, near the
flagpole. There he doubled up in limp agony, for the Wheeling
"stogie" joined with the surge and jar of the screw to sieve out
his soul. His head swelled; sparks of fire danced before his eyes;
his body seemed to lose weight, while his heels wavered in the
breeze. He was fainting from seasickness, and a roll of the ship
tilted him over the rail on to the smooth lip of the turtle-back.
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.