h two feet of
armour-plating outside that; and how the little fortress, as it
undoubtedly was, had a well dug deep down into the sands below the sea,
to supply its garrison with fresh-water in the event of communication
being cut off with the mainland. To provide against which contingency
it was also provisioned and furnished with every requisite to stand a
siege.

He was explaining all this, when a large screw-steamer, high in the bows
and low in the stern, crossed the _Bembridge Belle_ making for
Portsmouth.

"Hullo, ma'am!" cried the Captain, glad to have the opportunity of a sly
dig at Mrs Gilmour in remembrance of her previous amusement at his
expense, "there's your pig-boat!"

"What!" said she innocently. "I don't understand you."

"The Irish pig-boat, ma'am," he repeated, his beady black eyes twinkling
and his bushy eyebrows moving up and down, as they always did when he
said anything funny. "It brings your fellow-countrymen over here twice
a week."

"You're very complimentary, sir," said she. "Very complimentary, I
declare!"

"Not a bit of it, ma'am," he replied, delighted at the idea of her
taking his remark seriously. "Don't you, in your `swate little island'
call poor piggy `the jintleman who pays the rint,' eh?"

"Sure," she retorted with a smile, taking up the cudgels on behalf of
her country, "there are more pigs in England than what come over from
Ireland!"

"I cry a truce!" exclaimed the old sailor laughing heartily, Bob and
Nell, too, as well as Dick, appreciating the joke hugely; "you had me
there, ma'am, you had me there!"

The _Bembridge Belle_ was now well across the waterway, rapidly nearing
the pier from which they had originally started in the morning, and Mrs
Gilmour was just saying what a very enjoyable day they had passed, in
spite of all mishaps, while Nellie was priding herself on the grand
collection of wild-flowers she had made with her aunt's help, and Bob
and Dick busy over the bucket, showing Hellyer the various treasures
they had picked up amongst the rocks on the shore; when, all at once,
the bows of the steamer struck against something in the channel, with a
concussion that threw nearly everybody off their feet--the shock being
succeeded by a harsh grating sound as if her hull was gradually being
ripped open.

"Good gracious me!" cried out Mrs Gilmour, "what on earth is that?"

Nobody, however, for the moment, attended to her: nobody, indeed, even
heard the quest