I went over again, in memory, all the circumstances connected with the loss of the brigantine, the hours I had spent alone in the longboat, her destruction and my somewhat dramatic appearance among the crew of _La Mouette_, my reception by her mad captain, and then fell to conjecturing what the future might have in store for me, when I was suddenly aroused to a consciousness of my immediate surroundings by a sort of impression it was no more than that--that I had heard the sound of a ship's bell struck four times--_ting-ting_, _ting-ting_--far away yonder in the heart of the thick darkness.
