Page:Moonfleet - John Meade Falkner.pdf/272

 forced liquor into my mouth, and so I lay in drowsy content till utter weariness bound me in sleep.

It was a deep and dreamless sleep for hours, and when it left me, gently and as it were inch by inch, I found I was still lying wrapped in blankets by the fire. Oh, what a vast and infinite peace was that, to lie there half asleep, yet wake enough to know that I had slipped my prison and the pains of death, and was a free man here in my native place! At last I shifted myself a little, growing more awake, and opening my eyes, saw I was not alone, for two men sat at a table by me with glasses and a bottle before them.

"He is coming to," said one, "and may live yet to tell us who he is, and from what port his craft sailed."

"There has been many a craft," the other said, "has sailed for many a port, and made this beach her last; and many an honest man has landed on it, and never one alive in such a sea. Nor would this one be living either if it had not been for that other brave heart to stand by and save him. Brave heart, brave heart," he said over to himself. "Here, pass me the bottle, or I shall get the vapours. 'Tis good against these early chills, and I have not been in this place for ten years past, since poor Elzevir was cut adrift."

I could not see the speaker's face from where I lay upon the floor, yet seemed to know his voice; and so was fumbling in my weakened mind to put a name to it, when he spoke of Elzevir, and sent my thoughts flying elsewhere.

"Elzevir," I said, "where is Elzevir?" and sat up to look round, expecting to see him lying near me, and remembering the wreck more clearly now, and how he