good advice, Tom. We can sleep in peace with the way of escape
open to us--that is, _if_ we can."

"T'others can, sir," said Tom; "they're all sound enough."

Mark glanced at their companions, who had been unheeded during their
earnest conversation, and could see that his lieutenant's words were
correct.

"Let's lie down, then;" and, setting the example, his mind was so
utterly weary, and yet so much at peace, that he was soundly asleep in
less than five minutes, Tom Fillot in two.

Meanwhile on deck, after a bit of a consultation, the American skipper
had determined to get rid of his dangerous prisoners; and to this end he
had had the worst boat slightly provisioned with biscuit and water, and
she hung at the davits, ready for the midshipman and his followers to be
had up one by one, soon after daylight, and disarmed and bundled into
the boat to make for the shore.

"We'll get too far out for 'em to nab us again," the skipper said, as he
glanced shoreward through his night-glass, where the coast lay some
seven or eight miles away.

In profound ignorance of all this, Mark slept on till he was awakened by
Tom Fillot, and started up, staring and wondering, till he recalled that
which was before him.

Then he felt a chill of dread, for it would be a terrible thing to do--
that firing off a sufficient charge of powder to blow out the door and
yet leave the occupants of the cabin uninjured.

Tom Fillot had no such dread, and after trying to make out whether they
were watched, he quietly thrust an arm beneath the lid of the locker and
drew out a tin of powder, which he carried across, and placed with the
neck opened and on its side, so that a little of the contents ran out
close by the cabin entrance.

This he did three more times, laying the tins neck to neck, each open,
and helping to make a little hill of black grains, while his comrades
looked gloomily on. Then, fetching a fifth, he opened it, and laid a
zigzag train completely along the cabin floor right to beneath the
window, and returned carefully to empty the remainder on the little heap
and about the necks of the other tins.

Five pounds of gunpowder! Plenty to bring destruction upon all within
the cabin, as well as knock out the door and hatch beyond.

"There we are, sir," said Tom Fillot, seeking for a box of matches and
coolly taking one out. "Now we'll all lie down together when you think
it's a good time, and keep our heads close to the floor.