And while Stukely is closely questioning his patient the opportunity may be taken to explain, in a very few words, how the two friends came to find themselves where they were. As has already been stated, they were fighting among the party who were defending the rear during the retreat of the English back along the street by which they had come, when Dick was felled to the ground by a great stone hurled from the top story of one of the houses opposite which they were at the moment engaged. Stukely, who was fighting behind him, heard the crash of the stone on Dick's head, saw the lad reel and fall, and instantly stooped to raise him to his feet again. But Dick Chichester was no light weight for a man like Stukely to lift unaided, and before it could be done the whole fight seemed to sweep right over them. Stukely was knocked down and trodden under foot, men locked together in the grip of deadly strife reeled and staggered and stumbled over him, and finally he received a kick in the temple which so nearly robbed him of his senses that he was only very vaguely conscious of what was happening during the next minute or two. The next thing of which he was fully aware being that he was being held by the shoulders and dragged along over uneven ground, then he became suddenly conscious of being inside a building, and of hearing a door closed and barred; and, finally, of finding himself sitting upon the floor of the room where Dick and he now were, with the old lady supporting his head on her knee while a young woman endeavoured to pour _aguardiente_ down his throat. Then he fully recovered his senses, to find, to his great joy, that Dick also had been rescued, and was then lying senseless on a couch in the same room. Then, somehow, the young woman had disappeared, and rising to his feet, he had devoted himself to the task of wooing back Dick Chichester's senses. This, however, had proved a far more difficult task than he had at first anticipated; and it was not until the golden quality of the light streaming in through the closed jalousies proclaimed the near approach of sunset that Dick manifested any indication of returning consciousness, with the result already recorded. And now a protracted and careful examination of the wound, coupled with much questioning of his patient, convinced Stukely that his friend Dick had sustained a very serious injury to the head which had so far affected the brain that it would be several days at least before the young man could possibly be moved! Meanwhile, what was happening to the ship and the rest of the crew?