alongside the bank and
land the unfortunate creatures before resuming hostilities. A gang of
men was accordingly sent forward to clear away the necessary warps and
so on; and I was directed to go with a boat's crew into one of the
cutters to run the ends of the warps on shore.

The boats, it will be remembered, had been passed astern of the
schooner, and there they still remained uninjured, that craft having
settled down in water so shallow that her deck was only submerged to a
depth of about eighteen inches. In order to reach either of the boats,
however, it was necessary to pass along the deck of the sunken craft;
and I was just climbing down the brig's side to do so--the men having
preceded me--when the bulwarks to which I was clinging suddenly burst
outward, the brig's hull was rent open by a tremendous explosion, and,
enveloped for an instant in a sheet of blinding flame, I felt myself
whirled upwards and outwards for a considerable distance, to fall
finally, stunned, scorched, and half-blinded, into the agitated waters
of the creek. Moved more by instinct than anything else I at once
struck out mechanically for the shore. It was at no great distance from
me, and I had almost reached it when some object--probably a piece of
falling wreckage from the dismembered brig--struck me a violent blow on
the back of the head, and I knew no more.

CHAPTER NINE.

DOOMED TO THE TORTURE.

Consciousness at length began, slowly and with seeming reluctance, to
return to me; and so exceedingly disagreeable was the process, that if I
could have had my own way just then, I think I should have preferred to
die. My first sensation was that of excessive stiffness in every part
of my body, with distracting headache. Then, as my nerves more fully
recovered their functions, ensued a burning fever which scorched my body
and sent the blood rushing through my throbbing veins like a torrent of
molten metal. And finally, as I made an unsuccessful effort to move, I
became aware, first of all by sundry sharp smarting sensations, that I
had been wounded in three or four places; and secondly, by a feeling of
severe compression about the wrists and ankles, that I was bound--a
prisoner!

With complete restoration to consciousness my sufferings rapidly grew
more acute; and at length, with a groan of exquisite agony, I opened my
eyes and looked about me.

"Where was I?"

Somewhere on shore, evidently.

Overhead was the deep brilli