Then I stopped, panting with my exertion, the perspiration streaming from me, and feeling as if it would be impossible to get any farther. But all the same I was cheered by my success, and after gaining my breath I was just going to have another try when Barney whispered-- "What's ahead of you? Can you touch anything?" I stretched out my hands as far as I could reach, and this action elongated me a trifle, so that I felt myself slipping down a little-- only a few inches, but that was enough; a curious oppression of my chest followed, and to my horror I realised that the passage narrowed downwards, and my weight had carried me lower, so that now at last I felt that I was hopelessly wedged in. For some moments the horror of my position rendered me helpless. I could not struggle, but lay as if paralysed till Barney roused me by whispering in his cheery way-- "Takin' a rest again, my lad?" "No, no," I panted in a hopeless tone of voice; "I'm fast, Barney; I can't move." "Oh yes, you can, sir," he replied; "take it coolly." "But the packages on each side are holding me," I panted. "Have another go, sir. You don't know how ingyrubbery you are till you try, sir. Take it coolly, sir, then wait your time, and you'll work yourself out just as we did. All three on us got fast." "Yes; but there was some one to pull Bob Hampton out," I said angrily; and in this spirit I made a fierce effort after reaching up with one leg and one arm, and somehow managed to drag myself higher, so that I did not feel so much oppression at my chest. Another inch or two made me wonder why I had been so much alarmed, and in another minute I had passed the great crate, and found more room between the cargo and the beams overhead. But I hesitated to go farther in that horrible darkness, dreading some fresh complication, and feeling that now I had reached a part where I could hear, it would be wise to go back and accept my fate of a prisoner, and see what Jarette would do, when all at once the tapping, which had been unheard for some time, recommenced, and apparently so close, that my cowardly dread passed off, and I determined to go on. "All right now, aren't you, sir?" whispered Barney. "Yes." "Told you so. Only be careful, sir, I can't help you now." I felt about a little, and then crawled forward in no narrow perpendicular crevice, but flat on my chest, between the cargo and the deck, and in less than a minute my hand touched an upright piece? of roughly-sawn wood. Then another and another, and passing my hand between them I felt board, while the next instant there was a dull jar as if some one on the other side struck the board I touched, and gave three taps. I answered directly with my knuckles, and a strange feeling of emotion made my heart palpitate as a voice came through the narrow opening between the boards. "Is any one there?" I placed my mouth as close to the crevice as I could in my constrained position, and chancing being heard, I cried--