ticed that one of their number was
missing when they landed, we have at present no evidence to connect them
with it."

"We will set out as soon as my other two men return. I told them to be
back soon after twelve. I will write to you this evening from Rotterdam.
Ah! here are the men."

The door opened, and, to the stupefaction of the party, Mark Thorndyke
entered the room.

"Good Heavens, Mark!" Dick exclaimed, springing forward and seizing
his hand, "is it really you alive in the flesh? We had given you up for
dead. We have been searching the town for you all night, and were just
going to set out for Rotterdam in search of a barge on which we believed
you were carried. Why, it seems almost a miracle!"

The two prize fighters also came forward, and shook hands with a
pressure that would have made most men shrink.

"I am as glad, Mr. Thorndyke," Gibbons said, "as if anyone had given me
a thousand pounds. I have never quite given up hope, for, as I said to
Mr. Chetwynd, if you got but a shadow of a chance, you would polish off
those nigger fellows in no time; but I was afraid that they never would
give you a chance. Well, I am glad, sir."

"Mark, this is the Lieutenant of the watch here," Dick said. "He has
been most kind, and has himself headed the search that has been made for
you all night. Now tell us all about it."

"First of all give me something to drink, for, except some water, I have
had nothing since dinner yesterday. You are right, Dick; it is almost a
miracle, even to me, that I am here. I would not have given a penny for
my chance of life, and I can no more account for the fact that I am here
than you can."

Mark drank off a tumbler of weak spirits and water that Gibbons poured
out for him. Chetwynd rang the bell, and ordered lunch to be brought
up at once. Just at this moment the two detectives came in, and were
astonished and delighted at finding Mark there.

"Now," he said, "I will tell you as much as I know, which is little
enough. When I came to my senses I found myself lying on the deck of a
craft of some sort; it was a long time before I could at all understand
how I got there. I think it was the pain from the back of my head that
brought it to my mind that I must have been knocked down and stunned in
that fight; for some time I was very vague in my brain as to that, but
it all came back suddenly, and I recalled that we had all got separated.
I was hitting out, and then there was a crash. Ye