"Some of us thought it was the tiger had broke loose,--forgettin' that it had been sent ashore. Bob sneaked off the moment he found what he'd done, and the purser, thinkin' it was pirates, grabbed the first he could lay hold of by the throat, and that was me, so to it we went tooth an' nail, for I had no notion who was pitchin' into me, it was so dark. Two of the men in their fright sprang up the main shrouds. Two others, who were asleep in the main-top, were awoke by the row, looked down on the starboard side, an' saw the two comin' up. Thinking it was the friends of the Malay who had been flogged coming to be revenged, they ran down the port shrouds like mad, and one o' them rushed along the port-deck, stickin' his feet into the bread-baskets of all the sleepers that hadn't been woke by the yell, rousin' them up an' causin' them to roar like bo'suns. The row woke the cook, who was a nigger; he, thinkin' it was a sudden jollification, seized one o' the coppers an' began to beat it with an iron spoon. This set up the quartermaster, who rushed along the starboard deck, trampin' upon the breasts and faces of all and sundry. The gunner thought it was the tiger, and took to the top of the awning; while the doctor and bo's'n's-mate they jumped over the side, and hung on by ropes up to their waists in water! "At the worst o' the confusion the cap'n came aboard. We didn't see him, but he ordered silence, an' after a while we discovered that there was no reason whatever for the shindy. It wasn't till a long time afterwards that we found out the real cause of the false alarm; but the only man that got no fright that night, and kep' quite cool, was the man who set it all agoin'--Bob Roarer." "_What_ a feller you are, Bill, to talk blarney," said Corney, rising and knocking the ashes out of his pipe; "sure, aither yer father or yer mother must have bin an Irishman." "Blarney or no blarney, them's the facts," said Moxey, yawning, "an' I'm off to bed." "Ditto," said Frank, stretching himself. The two tressels, which were always removed from the room during the day, had been brought in, and were by this time occupied by Mason and Williams, whose duty it was to keep watch that night. Baxmore, the sub-engineer of the station, sat down at the desk to read over the events of the day, and the others rose to leave. "By the way, Baxmore," said Dale, "what was that false alarm at 2 p.m. when I was down at Watling Street?" "Only a chemist in Kensington, who, it seems, is mad after makin' experiments, and all but blew the roof off his house with one of 'em." "Ah! only smoke, I suppose," said Dale. "That was all," said Baxmore, "but there was sitch a lot of it that some fellows thought it was a fire, an' came tearin' down here wi' the news, so we had a ride for nothing." "If I'm not mistaken you'll have a ride for something ere long," observed Dale, turning his head aside, while he listened attentively. "Hold on, lads, a minute!"