possibly the idea that I could not be suffocated, made me
more at my ease.

I waited some little time, and then began to grow impatient; feeling
sure that I had fancied his coming and taken alarm at nothing, I
determined to lift the lid and get some fresh air, but I did not stir
just then, only lay still, finding my position terribly irksome. I
could not hear well either, and at last I began to move cautiously to
peer out, when to my horror there was a sharp blow delivered on the lid
of the locker, and then another probably given with the butt of a
revolver, and Jarette exclaimed fiercely--

"Hang the rats!"

I lay back, breathless, expecting that he would hear the dull heavy
throb of my pulses, while I trembled violently, thinking that all was
over, and that he was trifling with me, and knew all the while that I
was lying there. But by degrees I grew calmer. There were rats enough
in the hold. I had heard them, and why should he not have attributed
the slight rustling noise I made to one of the mischievous little
animals?

At last, to satisfy my doubts, I heard him come and kneel upon the
locker again, as if looking out of the cabin-window.

He stayed some minutes, and I began to think that he must see the boat;
but I soon set that idea aside and felt that it was absurd, for if he
had seen the boat he certainly would either have shouted to warn its
occupants away, or fired at them.

"He feels that he is not safe," I said to myself at last, and to my
great relief he got down, muttering to himself, and I could tell by the
sound that he was at the table, for I heard a clink of glass, the
gurgling of liquor out of a bottle, and then quite plainly the noise he
made in drinking before he set down the glass and uttered a loud "Hah!"

Just then I heard voices from forward, loud laughing and talking.

"Curse them, what are they doing now?" exclaimed Jarette, loudly. "Oh,
if I had only one man I could trust!"

He hurried out of the cabin, and I did not flinch now from opening the
lid and looking out, to find that the door had swung to as soon as he
had passed through.

The noise was so boisterous forward that I crept out, pushed the door,
and stood in the dark saloon, where I could still see the line of light
at the bottom of Miss Denning's cabin as I crept to the companion, and,
excited by curiosity, slipped aside to where I could shelter under the
bulwark and see what was going on.

There were lanterns now b