During the progress of the meal, it was easily to be seen that something unusual was going on. Our guards were unmistakably excited, and I will do the older man, Sargasta, the credit of saying that he appeared sufficiently alive to his own villainy to have no desire for conversation with either the Commander-in-Chief or myself. Conrad, on the other hand, was even more flippant than usual. I noticed also that both men watched the deck uneasily, as though they were momentarily expecting news from that quarter. If this were so, they were destined to be disappointed, for the meal ended as uneventfully as it had begun. According to custom, we had left our chairs and were proceeding to the door at the further end of the saloon, in order to take our usual promenade, when a hail reached us from the deck above. Conrad's face--he was standing in front of us at the time--turned as pale as the cloth upon the table, and when he ordered us back to our cabins, a second or so later, it was in a voice so unlike his own that I scarcely recognised it. As for myself, a sudden, and peculiar, feeling of composure had come over me. I felt sure the vessel they were expecting was in sight, and that in a short time they would be on their way to board her, leaving us to meet, with what fortitude we might, the miserable death they had arranged for us. To have let them have the least suspicion that we were aware of what they were about to do, would have been madness on our part, for in that case they would either have killed us outright, or have taken the precaution of making our cabins so secure, that we could not possibly escape from them in time. Once in my cabin I went to the port-hole and looked out. As I expected, I had interpreted the hail from deck aright, for, coming swiftly towards us, was a handsome vessel of the yacht type. Already, as I could tell from the revolutions of the screw, we had slackened our pace, and were doing but little more than crawl through the water. If we were to save ourselves we had not a moment to lose. Going to the bunk and procuring my gimlet, I set about the completion of my task with feverish energy. The blisters in the palm of my hand burnt like fire, my arm still ached from its morning exertion, but I kept steadily on, remembering that every turn of the little point was bringing us one revolution nearer safety. Only pausing now and again to look out of the port-hole, in order to note the vessel's progress, I continued the work until only some half-dozen holes were required to finish the task. In the saloon outside perfect silence reigned, and I could guess why--they were either preparing the machine, or making ready to leave the ship. It seemed to me that I could hear the ticking of the clock-work of the bomb. What if it were already in the stoke-hole, and had been running for half-an-hour? Another half-an-hour might elapse before I should be able to open the door. This thought sent the sweat of