So at 9 a.m., early in the month of November, the yacht _Titania_, Hugh Harborough, Master, slipped her moorings, and at a modest six knots dropped down Southampton Water on her long voyage to the Pacific. There were two absentees from her full complement, Jack Villiers was one, the other was Dick Beverley. An epidemic of mumps was raging in the school, and a swollen face intervened between Dick and a visit to the enchanting South Seas. CHAPTER IX "Where am I?" Jack Villiers opened his eyes slowly, only to shut them again. During the first moments of returning consciousness he was aware of a dull throbbing pain in the region of the nape of his neck--a pain that became almost excruciating when he made an effort to rise. It was some moments before he attempted to reopen his eyes. With his brain working slowly, he tried to account for his present state of discomfort. Something was wrong--what? Had he been playing Rugger, and been carried off the field? No; it couldn't be that. He hadn't played footer for months. Strafed by Huns? Wrong again: he realized that he had been "demobbed" and that there was no longer a war on. Yet he was on board ship. He could feel the steady pulsations of the engines and the thud of the propeller-shaft not so very far beneath him. Odours of an unmistakably "shippy" nature assailed his nostrils. Yes, he was at sea. The _Titania_ was under way. Yet that theory puzzled him. She wasn't ready for sea. Beverley and he were sleeping on board, and---- With an effort he raised himself on one elbow and tried to shout his chum's name. But not a sound came from his parched throat. His tongue, feeling as if it had swollen to abnormal dimensions, seemed to press, hot and dry, against the roof of his mouth. "Dash it all!" he ejaculated mentally. "Haven't I got a fat head? Where am I?" By degrees he became more rational. He lay still, not daring to move. Even then every roll of the ship sent thrills of acute pain over his body. At first when he opened his eyes everything appeared to be of a dull-reddish tinge, but presently the lurid mist cleared away and he found himself watching an oval-shaped patch of light that, penetrating a solitary scuttle, danced up and down the opposite bulkhead with every movement of the vessel. "What cabin is this?" he thought. "It's not mine; proper sort of a dog-box this. Who put me in here?" It was indeed a sorry sort of place. The walls and ceiling were covered with cork-cement that was dripping with moisture. At one time the composition had been painted white. It was now a sickly yellow streaked with iron-rust. On the floor was a ragged piece of oak linoleum. Underneath the scuttle, which was closed and secured by a tarnished brass butterfly nut, was a bunk on which a piece of old canvas had been placed to form a rough and ready mattress. And on the bunk, with his head supported by a folded coat--his own, lay Jack Villiers.