once expressed her horror of interment at sea.
"It is very hot," said he; "but surely you must
know some way of keeping him till we land in
New Zealand: curse these flies; how they bite!"

The surgeon's eyes sparkled; he happened to
be an enthusiast in the art of embalming. "Keep
him to New Zealand?" said he, contemptuously.
"I'll embalm him so that he shall go to England
looking just as he does now—by-the-by, I never
saw a drowned man keep his colour so well
before—ay, and two thousand years after that, if
you don't mind the expense."

"The expense! I don't care if it cost me a
year's pay. I think of nothing but repairing my
blunder as far as I can."

The surgeon was delighted. Standing over
his subject, who lay on the captain's table, he
told that officer how he should proceed. "I
have all the syringes," he said; "a capital
collection. I shall inject the veins with care and
patience; then I shall remove the brain and the
viscera, and provided I'm not stinted in arsenic
and spices——"

"I give you carte blanche on the purser: make
your preparations, and send for him. Don't
tell me how you do it; but do it. I must write
and tell poor Lucy I have got him, and am bringing
him home to her—dead."

The surgeon was gone about a quarter of an
hour; he then returned with two men to remove
the body, and found the captain still writing his
letter, very sorrowful: but now and then slapping
his face or leg with a hearty curse as the
flies stung him.

The surgeon beckoned the men in softly, and
pointed to the body, for them to carry it out.

Now, as he pointed, his eye following his
finger, fell on something that struck that
experienced eye as incredible: he uttered an
exclamation of astonishment so loud, that the
captain looked up directly from his letter; and
saw him standing with his finger pointing at the
corpse, and his eyes staring astonishment. "What
now?" said the captain, and rose from his seat.

"Look! look! look!"

The captain came and looked, and said he saw
nothing at all.

"The fly; the fly!" cried the surgeon.

"Yes, I see one of them has been biting him;
for there's a little blood trickling. Poor fellow."

"A dead man can't bleed from the small veins
in his skin," said the man of art. "He is
alive, captain, he is alive, as sure as we stand
here, and God's above. That little insect was
wiser than us; he is alive."

"Jackson, don't trifle with me, or I'll hang you
at the yard-arm. God bless you, Jackson. Is it
really possible? Run some of you, get a mirror,
I have heard that is a test."

"Mirror be hanged. Doctor Fly knows his
business."

All was now flutter and bustle: and various
attempts were made to resuscitate David, but all
in vain. At last the surgeon had an idea. "This
man was never drowned at all," said he: "I am
sure of it. This is catalepsy. He may lie this
way for a week. But dead he is not. I'll try
the douche." David was then by his orders
stripped, and carried to a place where they
could turn a watercock on him from a height:
and the surgeon had soon the happiness of pointing
out to the captain a slight blush on David's
skin in parts, caused by the falling water. All
doubt ceased with this: the only fear was lest
they should shake out the trembling life by rough
usage. They laid him on his stomach, and with
a bellows and pipe so acted on the lungs, that
at last a genuine sigh issued from the patient's
breast. Then they put him in a warm bed, and
applied stimulants; and by slow degrees the
eyelids began to wink, the eyes to look more
mellow, the respiration to strengthen, the heart
to beat: "Patience, now," said the surgeon;
"patience, and lots of air."

Patience was rewarded. Just four hours after
the first treatment, a voice, faint but calm and
genial, issued from the bed on their astonished
ears, "Good morning to you all."

They kept very quiet. In about five minutes
more the voice broke out again, calm and
sonorous.

"WHERE IS MY MONEY? MY FOURTEEN
THOUSAND POUNDS."

These words set them all looking at one
another; and very much puzzled the surgeon:
they were delivered with such sobriety and
conviction. "Captain," he whispered, "ask him if
he knows you."

"David," said the captain kindly, " do you
know me?"

David looked at him earnestly, and his old
kindly smile broke out.   "Know ye, ye dog," said
he, "why you are my cousin Reginald. And how
came you into this thundering Bank? I hope
you have got no money here. Ware land sharks!"

"We are not in a Bank, David ; we are on
board my ship."

"The deuce we are. But where's my money?"

"Oh, we'll talk about that by-and-by."

The surgeon stepped forward and said
soothingly, "You have been very ill, sir. You have
had a fit."

"I believe you are right," said David
thoughtfully.

"Will you allow me to examine your eye?"

"Certainly, doctor."

The surgeon examined David's eye with his
thumb and finger; and then looked into it to see
how the pupil dilated and contracted.

He rubbed his hands after this examination;
"More good news, captain!" then lowering his
voice, "Your friend is as sane as I am."

The surgeon was right. A shock had brought
back the reason a shock had taken away. But
how or why I know no more than the child
unborn. The surgeon wrote a learned paper, and
explained the whole most ingeniously. I don't
believe one word of his explanation, and can't
better it, so confine myself to the phenomena.