Saltash stood up abruptly.  “Toby, you are quite unique!” he said.  “Superb too in your funny little way.  Your only excuse is that you’re young.  Does it never occur to you that you’ve attached yourself to the wrong person?”

“No, sir,” breathed Toby.

“You’re not afraid to stake all you’ve got on a bad card?” pursued Saltash, still curiously watching him.

“No, sir,” he said again; and added with his faint, unboyish smile, “I haven’t much to lose anyway.”

Saltash’s hand tightened upon him.  He was smiling also, but the gleam in his eyes had turned to leaping, fitful flame.  “Well,” he said slowly, “I have never yet refused—­a gift from the gods.”

And there he stopped, for suddenly, drowning all speech, there arose a din that seemed to set the whole world rocking; and in a moment there came a frightful shock that pitched them both headlong to the floor.

Saltash fell as a monkey falls, catching at one thing after another to save himself, landing eventually on his knees in pitch darkness with one hand still gripped upon Toby’s thin young arm.  But Toby had struck his head against a locker and had gone down stunned and helpless.

The din of a siren above them filled the world with hideous clamour as Saltash recovered himself.  “Damn them!” he ejaculated savagely.  “Do they want to deafen us as well as send us to perdition?”

Then very suddenly it stopped, leaving a void that was instantly filled with lesser sounds.  There arose a confusion of voices, of running feet, a hubbub of escaping steam, and a great rush of water.

Saltash dragged himself up in the darkness, sought to drag Toby also, found him a dead weight, stooped and lifted him with wiry strength.  He trod among broken glass and plates as he straightened himself.  The noise above them was increasing.  He flung the limp form over his shoulder and began desperately to claw his way up a steep slant towards the saloon-door and the companion-way.  Sound and instinct guided him, for the darkness was complete.  But he was not the man to die like a trapped animal while the most slender way of escape remained.  Hampered as he was, he made for the open with set teeth and terrible foreign oaths of which he was utterly unconscious.

Whether that fierce struggle for freedom could ever have ended in success single-handed, however, was a point which he was not destined to decide, for after a space of desperate effort which no time could measure, there suddenly shone the gleam of an electric torch in front of him, and he saw the opening but a few feet away.

“Saltash!” cried a voice, piercing the outer din, “Saltash!”

“Here!” yelled back Saltash, still fighting for foothold and finding it against the leg of the table, “That you, Larpent?  How long have we got?”

“Seconds only!” said Larpent briefly.  “Give me the child!”

“No!  Just give me a hand, that’s all!  Hang on tight!  It’ll be a pull.”