and shaking him until his
neck seemed dislocated,--to the surprise of all and the horror of not a
few!

The result was that Bax grumbled angrily, half awoke, and raised himself
on one elbow.

"Drink, you tom-tit!" said the boy, catching the tumbler from the old
gentleman, and applying it to his friend's lips.

Bax smiled, drank, and fell back on the pillow with a deep sigh of
satisfaction. Then Tommy spread blanket after blanket over him, and
"tucked him in" so neatly and with such a business-like air, that two or
three mothers then present expressed their admiration and wonder in
audible whispers.

While Bax was being thus carefully tended by Tommy and a knot of
sympathisers, the passengers and crew vied with each other in making the
rescued people as comfortable as circumstances would permit.

Meanwhile the "Trident" was again laid on her course, and, thus crowded
with human beings, steered before favouring breezes for the shores of
old England.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

MYSTERIOUS DOINGS.

We return, now, to the coast of Kent, and beg the reader to follow us
into the Smuggler's Cave at Saint Margaret's Bay.

Here, in a dark corner, sat old Jeph. It was a stormy Sunday afternoon.
The old man had gone to the Bay to visit Coleman, and accompany him to
his place of worship. Jeph had wandered alone in the direction of the
cave after church. He found that some one had recently cleared its
mouth of the rubbish that usually filled it, and that, by bending low,
he could gain an entrance.

Being of an adventurous disposition, the old man went in, and, seating
himself on a projecting rock in a dark corner, fell into a profound
reverie. He was startled out of this by the sound of approaching
footsteps.

"Come in, come in," said a deep hoarse voice, which Jeph at once
recognised as that of Long Orrick, his old enemy. "Come in, Nick; you
seem to have got a'feer'd o' the dark of late. We'll be out o' sight
here, and I'll amuse ye till this squall blows over with an account o'
what I heer'd the old man say."

"This squall, as ye call it, won't blow over so soon as ye think,"
replied Rodney Nick in a sulky tone. "Hows'ever, we may as well wait
here as anywhere else; or die here for all that I care!"

"Hallo! messmate, wot's ado that ye should go into the blues when we're
on the pint o' making our fortins?" said Orrick.

"Ado!" cried Rodney angrily, "is it not bad enough to be called messmate
by _you_, and