initiated eyes to be a task which would take
days, but the men set-to with willing hands under the first-mate's
guidance, and package after package was hauled out by main force, and
sent on to the deck above, till quite a cutting was formed through the
cargo.

Every now and then the work was stopped for one of the officers to
listen, and make sure that they were working in the right direction, and
this precaution was not without its results in the saving of labour, for
the faint moanings, more plainly heard now that a portion of the cargo
was removed, seemed to be a little more to their right.

Mark Strong's first sensation, after the dog had thoroughly localised
the place of the man's imprisonment, was a desire to go right away, to
get off the ship and go ashore, where he could be beyond hearing of
those terrible moans; but directly after he found himself thinking that
it would be very cowardly, worse still that the chief mate and this Mr
Morgan would look upon him as being girlish. The result was that he
crept along over the top of the cargo on his hands and knees to just
beyond the place where the men were working, and seating himself there,
with Bruff between his legs, he watched the progress of the search.

It was a curious experience to a lad fresh from school, and the aspect
of the place added to the horror of knowing that a fellow-creature was
perhaps dying by inches beneath the sailors' feet. Where he sat the
beams and planks of the lower deck were only about four feet above his
head, and to right, left, and behind him all was thick darkness, faintly
illumined by the yellow light of a couple of swinging lanthorns, which
shed a curious ghastly halo all around; sixty feet away was the great
hatch, down which came the light of day; and between this and where Mark
sat, the dark figures of the busy sailors were constantly on the move in
a way that looked weird in the extreme. Now, half of them were out of
sight fastening the hooks and loops of the tackle to some bale; then
there was a loud "yoho-ing," and, with creaking and rasping, the great
package was dragged away into the patch of daylight, which it darkened
for a few moments, and then disappeared to the deck.

For the first few minutes Mr Gregory--"Old Greg," as the sailors called
him--stormed and raved about the labour and waste of time; but soon
after he was at work as energetically as any man in the crew, and in the
intervals of a great package being s