ed his eyes, and saw a gleaming of moving
machinery, and the red glare of furnaces.

"Where am I?" he asked, at last.

"In the engine room of the gunboat Farcey," a voice said.

"I am suffering agony," Ralph murmured, between his teeth.

"I daresay," the officer who was standing by him answered. "You
were pretty near frozen to death. Luckily your life belts kept you
from taking in any water, but it was a near squeak. Another three
minutes in the water, and the doctor says it would have been all up
with you."

"Where is my brother?" Ralph asked suddenly; sitting up, with a
full consciousness of all that had passed.

"He is coming round," the officer said. "He was farther gone than
you were; and his heart's action was altogether suspended, from the
cold. His limbs are twitching now, and the doctor says he will do.

"You call him your brother, but I suppose you mean your son?"

"Please lend me some clothes," Ralph said. "I can stand, now."

Some clothes had already been got in readiness, and warmed; and in
a couple of minutes Ralph was kneeling by his brother's side. Percy
was now coming to, and was suffering agonies similar to those which
Ralph himself had experienced, from the recommencement of
circulation in his limbs. He looked round, utterly bewildered; for
he had become insensible before the Farcey's gun had given notice
of her proximity. He smiled, however, when his eyes fell on Ralph's
face.

"It is all right, Percy, thank God," Ralph said. "We are on board
the gunboat Farcey and, in ten minutes, we shall be landed in the
heart of Paris."

In another five minutes, Percy was sufficiently recovered to begin
to dress. The commander of the Farcey now turned to Ralph.

"Your son has had a very narrow shave of it, sir."

"Son!" Ralph said, "He is my brother."

The officer looked surprised.

"How old do you take me to be?" Ralph asked.

"Forty-five or fifty," the officer said.

"I shall not be seventeen for some months," Ralph answered.

The officer looked at him with an air of intense astonishment, and
there was a burst of laughter from the men standing round. The
commandant frowned angrily at them.

"Quite so, my dear sir," he said, soothingly. "I was only joking
with you. It is evident that you are not yet seventeen."

"You think I have lost my senses, with the shock," Ralph said,
smiling. "I can assure you that that is my age. My beard and
whiskers are so firmly fixed on, with cobbler's wax,