Of course they blindfolded me, so that I should not see the way out of the place I left, nor the way into the other." "Ah, well, come on, and the skipper will talk to you.

He has been fine and mad about it, and I 'most think he's turned a bit thinner, eh, Dick ?" "Ay, that he have," said the latter.

"Leastwise you might think so." "One day he's been all in a fret, saying you've run away, and that you'd be dismissed the service, and it was what he quite expected; and then, so as not to put him out, when you agreed with him, he flew out at you, and called you a fool, and said he was sure the smugglers had murdered his officer, or else tumbled him off the cliff." Archy was too weary with excitement to care to talk much, and he tramped on with the men, hardly able to realise the truth of his escape, and half expecting to wake up in the darkness and find it all a dream.

But he was reminded that it was no dream, from time to time, by feeling a hand laid deprecatingly upon his bruised arm, and starting round to see in the darkness that it was Dirty Dick, who patted his injury gently, and then uttered a satisfied "Hah!" "Pleased to see me back," thought the midshipman, "but I wish he wouldn't pat me as if I were a dog." "Hullo!" exclaimed the master just then, as they came opposite a depression in the cliff which gave them a view out to sea.

"What's going on?
Forrard, my lads.