now from little more than the discomfort of cramped limbs, and
was able to follow intelligently the breathless story which the girl
poured out to him. At the conclusion he groaned at his own impotence.

"If I was only free I might find a way of stopping the ship," he said.
"Do you think if you could get tools you could draw the staple to which
the chain is fastened?"

Nettle stood on tiptoe, and, after a careful scrutiny in the half light,
was compelled to admit that the task, even with the aid of tools, would
be beyond her powers. The staple, which was really a heavy iron ring,
was firmly driven into the oak bulk-head, and without mechanical
leverage would remain immovable.

"But what should you have done supposing you were loose?" she asked.
"Find a pistol and shoot Brant and the mate? I am afraid I should miss
them, or I'd have a try myself."

"You would have to shoot the whole crew," replied Leslie, with a weary
smile for her eagerness. "No, I should endeavour to hit upon some plan
for damaging the engines. Those of a turbine steamer like this are a
very delicate piece of mechanism, and a comparatively trifling injury,
not necessarily entailing great violence, would do the trick. Ever such
a little delay for repairs would enable the _Snipe_ to catch up if they
have allowed her to come as close as you describe."

"Then the sooner I set to work the better," said Nettle, knitting her
brows, as the germ of an inspiration was born. "Good-bye, Mr. Chermside,
and keep your pecker up. Miss Maynard doesn't know the hobble we're
in--still thinks we're on the point of being rescued."

"God bless you for that," Leslie flung after his departing visitor.

But she was already half-way to the ladder to the main deck. In her
exploration of the steamer during the run from Weymouth on the previous
day she had been idly interested in what Chermside had called the
delicate piece of mechanism, so far as its throbbing pulses were visible
through the dome-shaped skylight of glass on the upper deck over the
engine-room. The glass was opaque and thickly corrugated, but a slide in
the dome had been opened for ventilating purposes, and through the
aperture Nettle had been fascinated by the antics of gyrating fly-wheels
and sucking piston-rods below. As she emerged into the free air of the
upper deck she wondered if that convenient slide was open now.

But her first glance was for the pursuing warship, and it told her that
the destroyer