It was clear they meant no personal harm to her, and they would never have brought me on board alive, if they had deemed it necessary to otherwise dispose of me.

These considerations were in the main reassuring, and as I turned them over in my mind I drifted into better humor.

Besides, my head had ceased to ache, and a little exercise put my numbed limbs into fair condition.
It was fully an hour after the coming of darkness before I was disturbed.

Then the door opened, and the entering gleam of a light swinging in the passage revealed the grinning negro steward bearing a well-filled tray.

This he deposited in the berth, while applying a match to the lamp overhead.