te. Tom Fillot stepped up lightly to his side and
touched him.

"Yes? What?" cried Mark, starting up in alarm.

"Hist, sir! Steady! They're a-breaking out."

"What!" said Mark, in an awe-stricken whisper, as his hands
involuntarily sought pistol and dirk.

"Hark!" came in a whisper to his ear; and leaning forward and peering
into the darkness, he distinctly heard at intervals a faint, dull clink,
as if some one were very carefully and slowly moving pieces of iron.

For the moment, half drowsed still by his desire for sleep, Mark could
not make out what it meant. Then he grasped the meaning of the sound.

"Why, Tom Fillot," he whispered, "they're getting off the chain cable
from the hatch."

"That's it, sir; link by link."

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.

A NOVEL FASTENING.

"Come on!" whispered Mark; "we must stop that game. Who's on the watch
at the hatch?"

"Sam Grote, sir; but, poor lad, he can't keep awake."

"A lantern," said Mark, laconically; and Tom Fillot trotted aft to the
cabin, and came back in five minutes with a light half hidden in his
breast.

During his absence, Mark had stood there listening in the darkness with
a peculiar shuddering sensation to the soft clinking as link passed over
link; and in imagination, while he peered through the transparent
darkness, he saw a hand, which had been thrust out after the hatch had
been raised a little, softly lifting and passing the cable off to the
deck.

Tom came back so silently that Mark was half startled. Then together
they went on tiptoe in the direction of the sound, the lantern being
carefully screened, and then only just a ray of light allowed to shine
out forward.

It fell upon the figure of the sailor Grote in a very peculiar attitude;
for the poor fellow, unable to keep awake, had knelt close by the hatch,
with his drawn cutlass point downward, resting on the cover, his two
hands upon the hilt, and his forehead upon his hands--fast asleep.

It was a dire offence against discipline, and a hot feeling of
indignation swelled in Mark's breast against the man.

But it died out as quickly as it had come. The man had done his best to
guard against the cover of the hatch being moved, feeling certain that
any attempt to stir it must be communicated to his brain by the cutlass;
and so no doubt it would have been later on. He was fast asleep, but
for the last two nights he had hardly closed his eyes, though utterly
worn out by the day's ex