ay. I'm willing."

"Then we have one friend on deck."

"Yes, sir, and s'pose he'll doctor the lot of 'em this next time and
have us all up on deck again. Good luck to him. I hope he'll look
sharp about it."

"Hist! What's that?"

It was the three knocks again plainly heard from forward somewhere, and
plain proof that we had other friends who would gladly join us in a
combination against our common enemy.

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

We answered the knocks, which were repeated, and we soon found that we
could signal to or talk to our friends forward, for we had pretty well
made out now which was fore and which aft, though it was evidently a
dead calm again, and the ship was rolling slowly from side to side.

But though we could signal and converse, there was no code for the
signals, and our conversation was in an unknown tongue.

I suppose it was the heat, or the fact that I had gone through so
terrible an experience from the narcotic, which made me feel so
intensely irritable, for after our knocking and tapping had gone on for
some time, I exclaimed--

"I wish to goodness they wouldn't. What is the good of their keeping on
doing that? It means nothing, and does no good."

"Oh, but it do mean something, sir," said Bob.

"Well, then, what?"

"They keep on tapping to show us where they are, and means us to go to
them."

"Why don't they come to us?" I said, in a tone full of vexation.

"'Cause they can't, sir."

"And we can't go to them," I cried pettishly.

"Well, I don't know, sir; I've been thinking as perhaps we could."

"But how, man? We can't get through all these cases and barrels and
things."

"No, sir; but praps we might manage to creep along over 'em. One on us
ought to volunteer to try."

"All right; volunteer it is," growled Dumlow. "I'll go."

"There you are, Mr Dale, sir. Never say die. Wait a minute, Neb, old
man, and let's set my fingers and thumbs to work to try whether they can
see a hole as 'll soot you to go along by."

"There can't be any holes, Bob," I said.

"Mebbe not, sir; but I tell you what cargo does in a voyage, specially
if you get a storm or two to shake it together. You may pack it and jam
it as much as you like when you're in dock, but it's sure to settle a
bit, and leave some room up at the top. I'm going to try whether there
arn't some o' that room here."

We waited almost breathlessly, and listened to our fellow-prisoner as he
rustled about; and