success, for the breech-block was gone beyond recovery; his next was
one of horror, and connected with the sharks that haunted those waters;
his third was full of despair; where was Poole, whom he seemed to have
left to his fate?

Hah! The surface again, and he could breathe; but which way to swim for
the boat? There was none needed, for his shoulders were barely clear of
the water when his arm was seized in a tremendous grip, another hand was
thrust under his arm-pit, and he was literally jumped, dripping, into a
boat, to pant out his first audible utterance for the past hour. It was
only a word, and that was--

"Poole!"

"I'm all right," came from out of the darkness close at hand.

"Then give way, my lads, for your lives!" panted Fitz, and the oars
began to splash.

It was quite time, for there was no sleeping on board the gunboat now.
All was rush and confusion; voices in Spanish were shouting orders, men
hurrying here and there, a few shots were fired in their direction,
evidently from revolvers, and then a steam-whistle was heard to blow,
followed by a hissing, clanking sound, and the man who had hauled Fitz
in over the bows put his face close to him and whispered--

"Steam-capstan. They're getting up their anchor. But there was three
splashes, sir. What was that there first?"

"The breech-block, Chips."

"Hooroar!"

It was some little time before another word was spoken, during which
period the men had been rowing hard, and the boatswain, who had got hold
of the rudder-lines, was steering almost at random for the shore, taking
his bearings as well as he could from the gunboat, out of whose funnel
sparks kept flying, and a lurid glare appeared upon the cloud of smoke
which floated out, pointing to the fact that the stokers were hard at
work.

"Mr Burnett--Mr Poole, sir," said Butters, at last, "I aren't at all
satisfied about the way we are going. I suppose we may speak out now?"

"Oh yes," cried Fitz; "I don't suppose they can hear us, and if they did
they couldn't do us any harm, for it must be impossible for them to make
us out."

"Oh yes, sir," cried the boatswain. "No fear of that."

"But what do you mean about not being satisfied?"

"Well, sir, my eyes is pretty good, and if you give me a fair start I
can take my bearings pretty easy from the stars when I knows what time
it is. But you see, it's quite another thing to hit the mouth of that
little river in the dark. I know the land