he got down into the men's
place, for there, dimly seen by the faint light shed by a great disc of
glass let into the fore part of the deck and well cemented with pitch,
was a man in one of the bunks sleeping heavily, while in a tone
indicative of his astonishment, the mate exclaimed,--

"What, Wriggs! You here?"

"Ay, ay, sir," shouted the man, rising so suddenly that he struck his
head a violent blow against the floor of the bunk above him. "I say,
don't wake a man quite so hard!" he grumbled, and then, as he recognised
the speaker, "Beg pardon, sir, didn't know it was you."

"Why, how did you get here?" cried Oliver.

"Get here, sir? Oh, I walked it, and was that bet out that I tumbled in
at once. Tommy Smith got back?"

"Yes, and all of them," cried the mate. "Here, pass the word for Smith,
and tell him it isn't a ghost."

"I'm here, sir," said a gruff voice as the hatchway was filled up by a
body which darkened the light. "Is it alive?"

"Tommy ahoy!" cried Wriggs hoarsely. "I got back fust."

"But how?" cried Oliver. "You did not pass us and come out the way we
went in."

"No, sir; I went out t'other way by the back door."

"Is he all right--alive?" cried Panton, in a voice full of hysterical
excitement as he scrambled down, followed by Drew.

"He seems to be," said the mate. "Are you sure you're alive, Wriggs?"

"Yes, sir, I think so."

"But how was it?" cried Oliver.

"Ah, that's a queshtun, sir," said the man, rubbing one ear. "I don't
quite know, on'y as I was walking along arter you one moment, and the
next my legs seemed to run down a slide and I was in the water."

"I thought so," cried Oliver.

"I did holler, but there was such a row nobody heered me, and afore I
knowed where I was I seemed to be going down with five hundred millions
o' chaps sousing buckets o' water on my head till I was most stifled,
and then I was going on again."

"Going on where?"

"Oh, I dunno, on'y as it was all dark and the water just deep enough to
slide me along over the bottom which was smooth as glass."

"Ah! the trough cut by the water in the lava stream," cried Panton,
"continued right on after the fall."

"Yes, sir, that's it. I continued right on arter the fall till I got
rayther sick on it and tried to get out fust one side and then the
other."

"And did you?" cried Oliver.

"No, sir, I just didn't, for it was all as slipper as slither, and as
soon as I tried, the water seemed to la