"I am glad to see you looking so much better," the captain said as they entered. "Sit down. Do you know," he went on with a smile, "I do not think that any of us would have slept had you not recovered sufficiently to tell your story to-night. We have been puzzling over it in vain. How you two boys came to be adrift alone on a raft, made up of three water-kegs, as Mr. Armstrong tells me, and how you came to have two bugles with you on the raft, is altogether beyond us." "The last matter is easily explained, sir," Tom said. "My brother and myself are buglers in H.M.'s Regiment of Norfolk Rangers, and as we were on duty when we went overboard, we had our bugles slung over our shoulders." "Buglers!" the captain said in surprise. "Why from your appearance and mode of expressing yourselves, I take you to be gentlemen's sons." "So we are, sir," Tom said quietly, "and I hope gentlemen--at any rate we have been Etonians. But we have lost our father, and are now buglers in the Rangers." "Well, lads," the captain said after a pause, "and now tell us how you came upon this little raft?" Tom related modestly the story of their going overboard from the "Nancy," of the formation of the raft, and of their after proceedings. Their hearers were greatly astonished at the story; and the captain said, "Young gentlemen, you have done a very gallant action, and have behaved with a coolness and bravery which would have done credit to old sailors. Had your father been alive he might have been proud indeed of you. I should be proud had you been my sons. If you are disposed to change services I will write directly we reach the Tagus to obtain your discharge, and will give you midshipmen's berths on board this ship. Don't answer now; you can think it over by the time we reach Portugal. I will not detain you now; a night's rest will set you up. Mr. Armstrong will introduce you to the midshipmen to-morrow; you are passengers here now, and will mess with them. Good-night." It was not many minutes before the boys were asleep in their hammocks. If people's ears really tingle when they are being spoken about, Tom and Peter would have had but little sleep that night. The first lieutenant related the circumstances to the other lieutenants; the second lieutenant, whose watch it was, told the gunner, who related it to the petty officers; the doctor told his mates, who retailed the story to the midshipmen; and so gradually it went over the whole ship, and officers and men agreed that it was one of the pluckiest and coolest things ever done.