rs--that beneath the window. Four or five of
those tied together would answer my purpose for lowering the guns, and
if tied to the window they would be strong enough for me to slide down.

I lifted the locker-lid, and there they were, quite a bed of them in the
bottom of the great convenient store of objects not in everyday use.

That got over one difficulty, but there was that of the ammunition, and
turning to the locker on my left I looked in that, to find plenty of
odds and ends of provisions, for it had become quite a store-room, but
no cartridges.

"Where can they be?" I muttered, as I stood holding the locker-lid and
gazing round the cabin for a likely spot for Jarette to have stowed them
ready for an emergency, when I heard his step so suddenly overhead that
I started in alarm to leave for my place of concealment, when the lid of
the locker slipped from my hand and fell with a smart rap.

I felt that I was lost--that it would be impossible for me to get to the
cabin and hide before he reached the companion-way, alarmed as he would
be by the sound, and looking frantically round I was for leaping into
the cot and drawing the curtains, but another thought struck me just as
I heard his step, and lifting the lid of the locker beneath the window,
I slipped in upon the flags, and let the cover down and shut me in.

The moment I was lying there in the darkness, the place just seeming big
enough to hold me lying upon my back with my knees drawn up, I felt that
I had done a mad thing, for Jarette would immediately come to the
conclusion that it was the shutting down of a locker which made the
sound, and come straight to the one I was in, open it, and drag me out.
It was too hot, and I could feel that in a few minutes I should be
suffocated if he did not find me. That he had entered the cabin I had
ample proof, for I heard him move something on the table quite plainly,
while directly he came to the locker where I was, and I heard a noise.
It was the thump, thump made by his knees as he got upon the lid to
kneel upon it and look out of the window.

My heart gave a bound; he did not know then that I was hiding there.
But the next moment I was in despair, for the heat was intense, my
breath was coming short and painful, and Jarette made no sign of leaving
what promised to be my tomb.

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT.

I bore it as long as I could, and then I was on the point of shrieking
out and striking at the lid of the