It was during this interval that Mr Meldon went to the inner cabin, where, weak and feverish, John Studwick lay, watched over now by his sister and Hester Pugh, who seemed to have awakened to a new life as she exchanged glances once with her husband, the trials they were in seeming as nothing compared to the horrors of the past. As the doctor approached, the young man turned to him impatiently. "Well," he said, "have you come to make me strong, so that I can fight these scoundrels with you?" "I wish I could," was the quiet reply. "Bah! Doctor's talk," said John Studwick bitterly. "You know you can do me no good. Why do you pester me?" "Don't speak to me like that," he replied; "I have tried my best to help you." "Yes, yes, I know. But there, go. You worry me by staying, and this heat makes me so weak." "Yes, I will go directly," said the doctor; but he first went to the cabin window, secured a piece of string to a cloth, and lowered it down, soaking it, and drew it up. As he did so, a good-sized shark turned over and made a snap at the white, moving cloth, and the doctor shuddered, for it seemed to him that any attempt to escape from the ship to the shore would be in vain, for, as if in anticipation of coming carnage, the sharks were gathering round the doomed ship. "Lay that upon his forehead, Mrs Pugh," he said quietly; and as she turned to the locker upon which the young man lay, Mr Meldon hastily caught Bessy's hand in his and held it. "I shall fight for you to the last," he said in a low whisper. "Do not think ill of me for speaking now; but, Bessy, I love you--very dearly, and--and we may never meet again. Say one kind word to me before I go." She snatched her hand from his hastily, and looked upon him in a scared manner. What she would have said was checked by a sharp cry from the captain. "Quick all!" he shouted, "they are coming." The doctor rushed back into the little saloon, and he was only just in time, for the door had been quietly unfastened from without, and headed by Laure, armed to the teeth, the enemy, to the number of eight, suddenly appeared, and the two sides stood face to face. "There, throw down those knives," he said in a sharp voice, "fools and idiots. The tables are turned now. Parkley, Pugh, you little thought that my day would come, but it has. Now, surrender!" There was no reply by words, and the Cuban read the intention of those he sought to master by their determined front. "Do you want to be shot down where you stand?" he cried. "Better that than trust to the mercies of such a scoundrel as you," cried Dutch, passionately. "Ah, my brave diver and shark slayer, are you there? Put down that weapon; I don't want you hurt, nor you neither, Master Rasp, for you have to work for me." There was no reply for a moment or two, and then Dutch spoke to the men who were with the Cuban.