"Where are we?" "Dunno, sir. Here, I think." "But where is here, stupid?" "That's a true word, sir. I am stupid--who's this?" "Dick Bannock, AB, it is," said the familiar voice of that seaman. "Know where we are, mate?" "No. Awake, I think." "Well, we know that," cried Mark, pettishly. "Yes, I remember now. I must have gone to sleep." "That's about as near as we shall get to it, sir," said Tom Fillot. "This here's the cabin, and there ought to be a locker here, with matches in it, and a lamp. Wait a moment." There was a rustling as Mark listened, and the rush of the water came up from below, and he could feel that the schooner was gently careening over as she glided on through the calm sea. "Hooroar!" said Tom; and the next moment there was the scratch of a match, and the little cabin was illumined, showing Tom Fillot learning over a lamp, which directly after burned up, and showed that the cabin door must have been opened while they slept, for a tub of water and a bucketful of biscuits had been thrust in. "Look at that," cried Dick Bannock. "Now, if we'd been awake, some of us might have got out and took the schooner again." "Not much chance o' that, messmate," said Tom Fillot. "They're too cunning not to have taken care. Don't mean to starve us, seemingly." "Put out the light," said Mark, after a glance round, to see that Mr Russell was unchanged, and the next moment the cabin was in darkness. "Have your arms ready," he whispered, "and keep silence. Perhaps--" He did not finish speaking, for a faint shadow lay across the cabin skylight, and he was aware of the fact that some one must have been watching, probably listening as well. The shadow passed away; and mounting on the cabin table by the midshipman's orders, one of the men tried hard to find some way of opening the light, but short of breaking it open with sturdy blows of a sledge-hammer, there was no possibility of escape that way. After a time Mark whispered with Tom Fillot as to the renewal of an ascent through the cabin window and over the poop. "Proof o' the puddin's in the eatin', sir," said the sailor. "Only way is to try." "Yes, by-and-by," said Mark, "when all is quiet. Some of them are sure to go to sleep." For there was a good deal of talking going on upon deck, and they could smell tobacco, and once there came down the rattle of a bottle neck against a glass. So the prisoners waited patiently in the darkness, Mark discussing from time to time the possibility of the second schooner having been captured, but they had no means of knowing. One thing was, however, certain--they were sailing very gently, evidently not in pursuit, and, judging by the stars, they were going south, and thus farther away from aid. Making a guess at its being about midnight, and when all was wonderfully still, Mark whispered his plans to the men. They were simple enough.