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I now grew conscious that I was hungry and thirsty, and as thirst is pain even in its very earliest promptings—unlike hunger, which when first felt is by no means a disagreeable sensation—I endeavored to sit up, intending in that posture to call out, but found myself, as before, helpless. Then I thought I would call out without sitting up, and I opened my mouth, but my lungs would deliver nothing better than a most ridiculous groan. However, after some ten minutes had passed, the top of a man’s head showed over the rim of the hammock. The sight of his eyes and his large cap of fur or hair startled me; I had not heard him enter.

“Have you your consciousness?” said he.

I answered “Yes.”

“I am no doctor,” said he, “and don’t know what I am to do now that your senses have come to you.”

“I should like something to drink,” said I.

“You shall have it,” he answered, “give the drink a name? Brandy-and-water?”

“Anything,” I exclaimed. “I am very thirsty.”

“Can you eat?”

“I believe I shall be able to eat,” I replied, “when I have drunk.”