"That's better than Byron, a little," I ventured.

"Better? Why it's _true!_ How could he have known?"

I went back and repeated:

"What was that?' said Olaf, standing
On the quarter-deck,
'Something heard I like the stranding
Of a shattered wreck?'"

"How could he have known how the ships crash and the oars rip out and go
_z-zzp_ all along the line? Why only the other night.... But go back
please and read 'The Skerry of Shrieks' again."

"No, I'm tired. Let's talk. What happened the other night?"

"I had an awful nightmare about that galley of ours. I dreamed I was
drowned in a fight. You see we ran alongside another ship in harbor. The
water was dead still except where our oars whipped it up. You know where I
always sit in the galley?" He spoke haltingly at first, under a fine
English fear of being laughed at,

"No. That's news to me," I answered, meekly, my heart beginning to beat.

"On the fourth oar from the bow on the right side on the upper deck. There
were four of us at that oar, all chained. I remember watching the water
and trying to get my handcuffs off before the row began. Then we closed up
on the other ship, and all their fighting men jumped over our bulwarks,
and my bench broke and I was pinned down with the three other fellows on