e I heard the click of the lock as it went back, and,
turning the handle, the door opened, and I entered.

The cabin was a fine, roomy one, and of good height, as cabins went in
those days; it contained two standing bunks, one above the other, fitted
with brass rods and damask curtains, a sofa against the side of the
ship, a wash-stand in a recess between the bunks and the bulkhead
adjoining the saloon, a framed mirror above it, a folding mahogany table
against the transverse bulkhead, brass pins upon which to hang clothing,
a curtain to draw across the doorway, a handsome lamp with a
ground-glass globe hung in gimbals in the centre of the transverse
bulkhead, two large travelling trunks and three or four smaller cases,
broken open and the contents strewn upon the carpeted deck, and prone
among them, bound hand and foot and lashed together, were the figures of
a man and woman, both evidently elderly, although their precise ages
could hardly be guessed by the imperfect light that streamed in from the
saloon through the open door.

As I entered the apartment, noting these details in a single
comprehensive glance, the woman moaned--

"Oh, sir, for the love of God pray release us from these cruel bonds as
quickly as possible; they are bound so tightly that the circulation of
the blood is stopped, and we have been suffering the most excruciating
agony for hours."

"I will cut you adrift at once, madam," said I, unsheathing the long
knife which was attached to the belt that Simpson had lent me with the
clothes. "Had I known that you were in this cruel plight, I would have
risked everything in the endeavour to release you when I first entered
the cabin."

I cut the unfortunate couple adrift, and, having first taken the
precaution to draw the curtain of the side-light, lighted the lamp, and,
with Maxwell's assistance, raised the lady into a sitting position;
after which we lifted her husband and placed him on the bed in the lower
berth. He was a very fine, handsome man of about fifty years of age,
with that indescribable and unmistakable look of the soldier about him
that seems to set its mark upon every military man. His wife was
perhaps seven or eight years his junior, still exceedingly good-looking,
and must, at her best, have been a singularly lovely woman.

The colonel, it appeared, had, in common with the other passengers who
had any womankind on board, locked his wife and daughters into their
cabins when it was