had remembered where we were or what was like to come
afterwards. Voices we had heard, human voices above us, when first we
entered the cellar; and now, when the warning was uttered, we stood
dumb for some minutes and heard them again.

"Douse the glim--douse it," cries Peter, in a big whisper; "they're
coming down, or I'm a Dutchman!"

He turned the lantern and blew it out as he spoke. The rest of us
crouched down and held our breath. For ten seconds, perhaps, we heard
the deep, rough voices of men in the rooms above us. Then the trap-door
opened suddenly, and a beam of light fell upon the pavement not five
yards from where we stood. At the same moment a shaggy head peered
through the aperture, and a man cast a quick glance downward to the
cellar.

"No," said the man, as though speaking to some one behind him, "it's
been took, as I told you."

To which the other voice answered:

"Well more blarmed fool you for not corking good rum when you see it!"

They closed the trap upon the words, and we breathed once more. The
lesson they had taught us could not be forgotten. We were sobered men
when we lighted the lantern with one of Seth Barker's matches, and
turned it again on the doctor's face.

"In whispers, if you please," said I, "as few as you like. We are in a
tight place, my lads, and talk won't get us out of it. It's the doctor
first and ourselves afterwards, remember."

Dr. Gray, truly, was a little better by this time, and sitting up like
a dazed man, he looked first at Dolly Venn and then at his foot, and
last of all at the strange place in which he lay.

"Why, yes," he exclaimed at last, "I remember; a cut and a fool who
walked on it. It serves me right, and the end is better than the
beginning."

"The lad did it," said I; "he was always a wonder with linen and the
scissors, was Dolly Venn."

"To say nothing of a square foot of my shirt," put in Peter Bligh,
obstinately. "'Tis worth while getting a bit of a cut, doctor, just to
see Dolly Venn sew it up again."

The doctor laughed with us, for he knew a seaman's manner and the light
talk which follows even the gravest mishap aboard a ship. That our men
meant well towards him he could not doubt; and his next duty was to
tell us as much.

"You are good fellows," said he, "and I'm much obliged to you, Master
Dolly. If you will put your hand inside my coat, you will find a
brandy-flask there, and I'll drink your health. Don't worry your heads
about me,