ond their strength.

"Right to the brim," said Mark; and the cask was filled.

"There," cried Tom; "it would puzzle them to move that."

The men below evidently thought so too, for they made no further effort,
and subsided into a sulky kind of silence, while the chain was run back
into the cable tier, and the watch resumed without fresh alarm till
morning.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

"HATCHING MISCHIEF."

A long, busy day similar to the last, as they slowly crept along by the
coast. The weather glorious, the blacks docile to a degree, and the
Americans perfectly silent in their prison.

Provisions and bottles of water were lowered down to them by means of a
line through the ventilator; but the prisoners made no sign.

"My!" said Tom, with a laugh, as he fastened a string round the neck of
a well-corked bottle to lower it down, "won't the Yankee skipper be mad
when he puts that to his lips. Being a bottle, he'll think it's rum.
Some folks can't think as a bottle would hold anything else."

But no sound came even then, and Mark began to feel anxious.

"We haven't suffocated them, have we?" he said in a low voice. "They
are so very quiet."

"Not we, sir. They aren't the chaps to lie down and die without making
a pretty good flurry over it fust. No sir; they're a-settin'."

"Sitting, Tom," said Mark, wonderingly.

"No, sir; setting. Hatching mischief. They'll give us another of their
chickens after dark, and you and I must have a sleep apiece, so as to be
ready for 'em to-night."

"Yes. We must," said Mark; and after leaving the deck in charge of
Stepney and Grote, of the latter especially, as Mark felt sure that he
could be trusted now, he and Tom Fillot lay down under an awning they
had rigged up, and in less than a moment they were both sleeping
heavily.

It was nearly sundown when Mark awoke with a start from an uneasy dream,
in which he fancied that he had been neglecting his duty.

Tom Fillot was standing over him, and the lad's first words were,--

"What's the matter?"

Tom Fillot hastened to reply.

"Nothing, sir, I've been all round. Prisoners safe, rations been
issued, blacks all quiet, shore three miles off, and nice wind from the
sou'-west."

"Ah!" sighed Mark, with a feeling of relief stealing over him. "I
thought something was wrong, and that I had slept too much. How is Mr
Russell?"

"Just as he was, sir; lying as quiet as a babby." Mark crossed to where
a bucket of water