ship."

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

"Master Carey, sir!" came through the broken skylight. "Hear that?
Hadn't we better begin first?"

"Wait a minute," replied Carey, who was trembling with excitement,
brought on by the responsibilities of his new position. "Let me speak
to Doctor Kingsmead."

Bostock grunted, and the boy turned to the wounded man.

"Did you hear what this wretch said?" he asked.

The doctor pressed the hand which took his, but made no reply in his
utter exhaustion, and Carey drew back uttering a sigh, as much from pain
as anxiety.

"It's no use," he muttered, "there's no help for it. I've got to do it
all."

"Big Dan go mumkull ebberybody?" asked Jackum, quietly, and as if it was
all a matter of course.

"No, no," cried Carey, angrily. "I'd soon kill him."

"Ha!" cried the black out of the darkness, for it was night now, with
the black's figure just visible in the flames from the shore. "No kill
Jackum?"

"Not I," cried Carey. "Here, let me come by."

He thrust the black aside, and went under the broken light.

"Look here, Bob," he cried. "Can that old wretch blow up the ship?"

"Well, sir, that's what I've been thinking. It's all very well to say
you'll do a thing, but it aren't always easy, you see."

"But is the powder magazine close by where he's lying?"

"That's what I want to know, sir?"

"Don't you know?"

"No, sir; and that sets me a-thinking, how can he know?"

"But you've belonged to the ship for years."

"Ay, sir, I jyned for the first v'y'ge."

"And you've seen her loaded."

"That's so, sir."

"And you don't know where the powder magazine is?"

"Well, sir, to speak quite fair and honest, I don't."

"Isn't that strange?"

"Sounds so, sir, but 'tween you and me I don't b'lieve there is any
powder magazine. The old _Soosan_ aren't a man-o'-war."

"No, of course not."

"She aren't got no great guns like we had aboard the _Conkhooroar_.
What do we want with a powder magazine?"

"But there is a gun on deck."

"Tchah! A little brass pop-shot, to make signals with. The skipper had
got some charges for her, and a few boxes o' cartridges in a locker; but
I don't believe there's even the ghost of a magazine."

"Then it's all an empty threat, Bob."

"I don't say that, my lad, because though I never heard o' one there's
room for half a dozen. All I say is, it aren't likely. Only I don't
want you if we are blowed to bits to pull yourself together afte