CHAPTER XV.

EXPECTATION.

WHEN I came to my senses I was lying on my bed in my
cell, where, it appears, I had been asleep for thirty hours.

I was not alone. Serk6 was with me. He had given
me all the necessary care; he had nursed me himself—
not as a friend, I think, but as the man from whom they
expected important explanations, but of whom they were
ready to rid themselves instantly if the common interest
required it.

I was still incapable of walking a step; a little more,
and I should have been asphyxiated in the narrow com-
partment of the Sword as it lay at the bottom of the
lagoon. Iwas nowin a state to answer the questions that
Serké was burning to ask me relative to that strange
adventure ; but I intended to be very reserved.

First of all I wondered: Where was Lieutenant Davon
and the crew of the Sword? Had those brave Englishmen
perished in the collision? Were they safe and sound as
we were—for I concluded that, like myself, Roch had
survived the double collision of the tug with the Sword.

The first thing Serké said was,—