--Off, I say, minion!"

"It'll blow over, lad; it'll blow over. You take my advice and come
quiet--Oh, but we _want_ you!--an' if you hear another word about
this evening's work I'll forfeit my mess."

"Hands off, ruffian! Help, I say, there--Help!"

"Shame! Shame!" cried a dozen voices. But nine-tenths of the
audience were already pressing around the doors to escape.

At a nod from Mr. Jope, two seamen ran and cut the cords supporting
the drop-scene.

"Heads, there! Heads!"

The great roller fell upon the stage with a resounding bang.

With the thud of it, a hand descended and smote upon the Major's
shoulder.

"Come along o' me. _You'll_ give no trouble, anyway."

"Eh?" said the Major. "My good man, I assure you that I have not the
slightest disposition to interfere. These scenes are regrettable, of
course. I have heard of them, but never actually assisted at one
before; still, I quite see the necessity of the realm demands it, and
the realm's necessity is--or should be--the supreme law with all of
us."

"And you can _swim_. You'd be surprised, now, how few of 'em could
take a stroke to save their lives. Leastways," Mr. Adams confessed,
"that's _my_ experience."

"I beg your pardon."

"Ben's impulsive. I over'eard him tellin' you to stick fast to him;
but, all things considered, that's pretty difficult, ain't it?
Never you mind; _I'll_ see you aboard the tender."

"Aboard the tender?"

The Major stepped back a pace as the fellow's absurd mistake dawned
on him. "Why, you impudent scoundrel, I'm a Justice of the Peace!"

But here a rush of the driven crowd lifted and bore him against the
gallery rail. A hand close by shattered the nearest lamp into
darkness, and the flat of a cutlass (not Bill Adams's) descending
upon our hero's head, put an end for the while to speech and
consciousness.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE "VESUVIUS" BOMB.

He awoke with a racking headache in pitchy darkness; and with the
twilight of returning consciousness there grew in him an awful fear
that he had been coffined and buried alive. For he lay at full
length in a bed which yet was unlike any bed of his acquaintance,
being so narrow that he could neither turn his body nor put out an
arm to lift himself into a sitting posture; and again, when he tried
to move his legs, to his horror they were compressed as if between
bandages. In his ear there sounded, not six inches away, a low
lugubrious moaning. It could