"So we are at the island, man alive. We couldn't help being brought here; but now we are here, we may as well make the best of it. What splendid tobacco! Real Latakie!" Hilton fretted and fumed; and finding that he could not move his friend, he went to door and window, examined the walls, and looked up at the open roof; but Chumbley did not move, he merely seemed to be studying their position in the coolest way. "Look here, sit down, old fellow," he exclaimed at last, just as Hilton had worked himself into a heat, "it doesn't seem to me to be of any use to fret and fume. Have a little patience, and let's see whether this has been done by our dark friend, or else what it does mean." "How can a man have patience," cried Hilton, "seized in this ruffianly way!" "'Twas rough certainly," said Chumbley, slowly. "Torn from his quarters--" "To better ones, my dear old man. Let's play fair. One doesn't get such a breakfast as this at the fort." "Dragged from his love!" cried Hilton, who did not seem to heed his companion's remarks. "Well, that last's all sentiment, old man," drawled Chumbley. "For my part I think it will do you good. I say--happy thought, Hilton--Helen Perowne's at the bottom of this, and wanting to get rid of you, has had you carried away. Me too, for fear I should make the running in your absence." "Do you wish to quarrel, Chumbley?" cried Hilton. "Not I. You couldn't quarrel with me. But joking apart, old man, I saw enough yesterday to know that you had got to the end of your tether, and that--" "And that what?" cried Hilton, fiercely; for Chumbley had halted in his speech. "That she had pitched you over, same as she had a score of others before you." "Silence! It is a falsehood--a calumny--a damned lie! How dare you say that?" "Oh, easy enough!" said Chumbley, without moving a muscle. "It's just waggling one's tongue a bit. Bully away, old man, I don't mind; and you'll feel better when you've rid yourself of all that spleen." "As to Miss Perowne knowing of this--" "Oh, that's absurd, of course!" cried Chumbley; "but she has pitched you over, old man, and you now belong to the ranks of the unblessed." "I cannot quarrel with you, Chumbley," said Hilton, cooling down, "because I know you to be too good a fellow to slight; but will you talk sense?" "Yes, dear boy, of course I will; but I wish you'd try this tobacco. This is sense that I am going to say now. I feel sure that we have been kidnapped so that our new friends may get a nice little sum for us out of the British Government." "Well, it is likely," said Hilton, whose anger had been of a fleeting nature. "But if they do not get the ransom--what then?"