the same as you were, and don't know what
happened. It was all like being in a dream till a little while ago."

"Then you know nothing?" he said excitedly.

"I only have a sort of misty recollection of lying there after the
explosion, till I was carried out on deck and laid in the sun."

Then I told him all about being like in a nightmare, and hearing them
talk of throwing us both overboard, only Bob Hampton said we were alive.

"The scoundrel!" he said bitterly.

"Well, I thought it very jolly of him then," I said, "for if it had not
been for him we should have--"

I pointed downward.

"Right to the bottom of the sea," I added.

"Yes; and you seem to have been hurt."

"Hurt? I should think I was, horribly," I cried; "but it don't seem so
bad now, since I've been helping you."

"But the passengers, Dale?" he said excitedly, as he tried to sit up,
but sank back with a groan; "have you not heard anything whatever about
them?"

I shook my head.

"Didn't you see anything to suggest that any one was killed and--and
thrown overboard?"

"No, Mr Frewen."

"Go out then and make inquiries, my good lad," he said piteously; "this
suspense is worse than the injury."

"You forget," I said quietly.

"Forget? What?"

"That we are prisoners. I couldn't get out."

"Yes, yes," he moaned. "I forgot. My head is all confused and strange.
What's that?"

"Some one knocking gently at the bulk-head," I whispered, for there were
three gentle taps on the wooden partition just opposite to where I was
kneeling.

"Then there is some one else a prisoner," he cried. "Quick, speak to
him."

"Better not speak," I said; "we may bring in some of Jarette's gang;"
and rising softly, I took out my pocket-knife, and gave three gentle
taps with the haft just about the spot where we had heard the sounds.

The moment I had done, two knocks came in answer, and when I had
responded in the same way, there was one single one given which I also
answered.

"That only stands for some one being there," said Mr Frewen, with a
sigh; "we have no code arranged by which we could communicate."

"Oh yes, we have," I said, with a laugh, and, after breaking my
thumb-nail, I managed to open out a gimlet fitted in the back of my
knife, in company with a button-hook, a lancet, another to bleed horses,
a tooth-pick, pair of tweezers, and a corkscrew, all of which had been
very satisfactory to look at when I received the knife as a present; but