"Mr. Chermside, are you in there?" she asked, excitement rather than fear of being overheard causing her to drop her voice to a whisper. Again that curious sound but no informing reply, and Nettle crept into the cabin. She had penetrated but a few feet when she stumbled over something, and, stooping down, she felt a soft substance which her sense of touch informed her was the body of a man. The next instant she gave vent to a cry of horror when her searching hands came into contact with a steel chain which her busy fingers quickly traced to a metal circlet grasping a man's leg. "Mr. Chermside!" she scarcely breathed. "Give me water," came the faint response from the unseen. Nettle Jimpson's presence of mind, which had never really left her, reasserted itself in full force. "Shan't be a moment," she said, and whisking out of the cabin, retraced her steps as best she could to the ladder, climbed to the main-deck, and seized a jug of water from the table where the ship's officers had supped. She looked around for a portable lamp or candle, but this deck, like the rest of the vessel, was electrically lit, and she had abandoned the hope of providing herself with a light, when she espied a box of wax matches among a heap of tobacco ashes on a plate. A minute later she was down on the lower deck again, holding the jug to Leslie's parched lips, and by the tiny flare of one of the matches examining the dungeon which Brant's malevolent spite had devised for his prisoner. Leslie was lying on a plank bench, securely chained from the ankles to an iron ring firmly set in the stanchion over his head. His face was covered with blood, and he was white with the loss of it, though he revived fast when he had drained the water. By the time Nettle had lit her third match she had assured herself that his injuries were not dangerous, though she was equally convinced that to release him from his cruel durance was beyond her powers. "Miss Maynard--they have not harmed her?" gasped Leslie, as soon as he could speak. His ministering angel hastened to reassure him, exaggerating sturdily in a good cause. "She's treated like a queen, with every deference and respect," said the girl, as she eased his cramped position. "Of course, she's worried about you. But see here, Mr. Chermside, we've no time for talking. I must get back to the saloon without being caught if I'm to be of any use. There are only us two women to stand between you and these fiends, and there's only God Almighty to stand between us and--the end of the voyage. There's a bare chance that we may be able to send word into Plymouth, if I can fool or browbeat the captain, and I must be on hand to run that chance for all it's worth. You understand that I can't stay here with you?" "Yes, go at once," murmured the injured man. "Never mind me, but for heaven's sake do what you can for her. Above all, let me beg of you not to harrow her with a description of all this."