ks at Smithfield down there. A hundred and eighty men penned
into a place fifty feet long, with the air like an oven--what could you
expect?"

Poor Blunt stamped his foot.

"It isn't my fault," he cried. "The soldiers are berthed aft. If the
Government will overload these ships, I can't help it."

"The Government! Ah! The Government! The Government don't sleep, sixty
men a-side, in a cabin only six feet high. The Government don't get
typhus fever in the tropics, does it?"

"No--but--"

"But what does the Government care, then?"

Blunt wiped his hot forehead.

"Who was the first down?"

"No. 97 berth; ten on the lower tier. John Rex he calls himself."

"Are you sure it's the fever?"

"As sure as I can be yet. Head like a fire-ball, and tongue like a strip
of leather. Gad, don't I know it?" and Pine grinned mournfully. "I've
got him moved into the hospital. Hospital! It is a hospital! As dark as
a wolf's mouth. I've seen dog kennels I liked better."

Blunt nodded towards the volume of lurid smoke that rolled up out of the
glow.--"Suppose there is a shipload of those poor devils? I can't refuse
to take 'em in."

"No," says Pine gloomily, "I suppose you can't. If they come, I must
stow 'em somewhere. We'll have to run for the Cape, with the first
breeze, if they do come, that is all I can see for it," and he turned
away to watch the burning vessel.

CHAPTER VI. THE FATE OF THE "HYDASPES".

In the meanwhile the two boats made straight for the red column that
uprose like a gigantic torch over the silent sea.

As Blunt had said, the burning ship lay a good twelve miles from the
Malabar, and the pull was a long and a weary one. Once fairly away from
the protecting sides of the vessel that had borne them thus far on
their dismal journey, the adventurers seemed to have come into a new
atmosphere. The immensity of the ocean over which they slowly moved
revealed itself for the first time. On board the prison ship, surrounded
with all the memories if not with the comforts of the shore they had
quitted, they had not realized how far they were from that civilization
which had given them birth. The well-lighted, well-furnished cuddy, the
homely mirth of the forecastle, the setting of sentries and the changing
of guards, even the gloom and terror of the closely-locked prison,
combined to make the voyagers feel secure against the unknown dangers of
the sea. That defiance of Nature which is born of contact wit