n the gale. Conversation, even by shouting, being
hopeless, they once more fell into despairing silence.

"What has happened?" cried Phil half an hour later. "We seem to have
left the crash of waves on the cliff behind us, and already the sea
seems to be going down."

Tony crept closer. "The wind ain't going down," he shouted hoarsely.
"It's blowing stronger if anything, and though we lies low in the water,
we're bowling along in fine style. Can't make it out, mate; this sea
going down looks as if we'd been washed into some sheltered cove.
Anyway we shall know soon," and he jerked his arm to the right, where
already the black clouds were lifting.

Half an hour passed, when Phil suddenly caught sight of high cliffs to
right and left, while on the summit of one of them seemed to be a fort,
for the white masonry was distinctly visible. He stared through the
gloom and sweeping sheets of spray, and thought he detected another fort
on the opposite side. A few minutes later they were washed through a
large opening in the cliffs, and the forts flashed by on either side; at
the same moment the sea became still quieter, and the roar of the wind
seemed left behind them.

"I think I saw a fort on either side," cried Phil, "and as I know there
is only one harbour on this coast with high cliffs and forts, I feel
certain that we are drifting into Sebastopol. Great Scott! We shall be
made prisoners again."

Tony groaned. "Can't be helped," he shouted, suddenly brightening. "If
we are, why, it'll just give us the fun and excitement of escaping
again. But, old friend, this here's an escape from sudden and horrible
death, and if it hadn't been that the Almighty up there, above them
black clouds, had been keeping His eye on us, we'd have been washing
about amongst the fishes hours ago."

Tony looked upwards to the sky, and his lips moved. Phil watched him
curiously, and there, tossing on the storm-troubled water, offered up a
prayer for his safety so far. Nor could he help contrasting Tony's
condition of mind as it was at that moment with what it had been when
first he made his acquaintance in the menagerie many months before.

"Hallo! What's that over there?" he suddenly shouted, catching sight of
a dark mass in the water. "It looks like a piece of wreckage. Perhaps
there is someone on it."

Both stared at the object which, being much larger and higher out of the
water, bore down upon them quickly. There was no d