Page:Frank Stockton - Vizier of the two-horned Alexander.djvu/22

THE VIZIER OF THE that he felt almost as much at home on sea as on land. We made ourselves comfortable all day, and at night we went to our rooms, and I slept fairly well, although there was a very disagreeable slant to my berth. The next day, early in the afternoon, our signal of distress was seen by a tramp steamer on her way to New York, and we were taken off.

We cruised about for many hours in the direction the boats had probably taken, and the next day we picked up two of them in a sorry condition, the occupants having suffered many hardships and privations. We never had news of the captain's boat, but the others were rescued by a sailing-vessel going eastward.

Before we reached New York, Mr. Crowder had made me promise that I would spend a few days with him at his home in that city. His family was small, he told me,—a wife, and a daughter about six,—and he wanted me to know them. Naturally we had become great friends. Very likely the man had saved my life, and he had done it with out any act of heroism or daring, but simply by impressing me with the fact that his