“Don’t exhaust yourself like that,” shouted Lermontoff.  “If you want to live, cling to the hole at either of the two upper corners.  The water can’t rise above you then, and you can breathe till it subsides.”

The other either did not hear, or did not heed, but tore round and round in his confined tank, thrashing the water like a dying whale.

“Poor devil,” moaned Jack.  “What’s the use of telling him what to do.  He is doomed in any case.  The other two are now better off.”

A moment later the water began to dribble through the upper aperture into Jack’s cell, increasing and increasing until there was the roar of a waterfall, and he felt the cold splashing drops spurt against him.  Beyond this there was silence.  It was perhaps ten minutes after that the lever was pulled, and the water belched forth from the lower tunnel like a mill race broken loose, temporarily flooding the floor so that Jack was compelled to stand on the bench.

He sunk down shivering on the stone shelf, laid his arms on the stone pillow, and buried his face in them.

“My God, my God!” he groaned.

CHAPTER XVII

 A fellow scientist

In this position Jack slept off and on, or rather, dozed into a kind of semi-stupor, from which he awoke with a start now and then, as he thought be heard again the mingled cries of devotion and malediction.  At last he slept soundly, and awoke refreshed, but hungry.  The loaf lay beside him, and with his knife he cut a slice from it, munching the coarse bread with more of relish than he had thought possible when he first saw it.  Then he took out another cigarette, struck a match, looked at his watch, and lit the cigarette.  It was ten minutes past two.  He wondered if a night had intervened, but thought it unlikely.  He had landed very early in the morning, and now it was afternoon.  He was fearfully thirsty, but could not bring himself to drink from that stream of death.  Once more he heard the bolts shot back.

“They are going to throw the poor wretches into the sea,” he muttered, but the yellow gleam of a lantern showed him it was his own door that had been unlocked.

“You are to see the Governor,” said the gaoler gruffly.  “Come with me.”

Jack sprang to the floor of his cell, repressing a cry of delight.  Nothing the grim Governor could do to him would make his situation any worse, and perhaps his persuasive powers upon that official might result in some amelioration of his position.  In any case there was the brief respite of the interview, and he would gladly have chummed with the devil himself to be free a few moments from this black pit.