Propping himself up by his elbow Dick listened intently. To his intense disappointment he heard no sounds of guns—not even a distant rumble. Did it mean the operations had been abandoned?
He began wondering what had happened to the rest of the boat's crew; why his captors should have detailed a Turkish bluejacket to attend the two wounded officers; and why Ahmed Djezzar had so vehemently expressed himself as being a friend. These and a hundred other thoughts flashed through his mind, until his reveries were interrupted by the reappearance of the Turk bearing a metal tray on which was a brass cup and a jug filled with sherbet water.
Dick drank eagerly. As he did so a faint suspicion that the liquid might be poisoned entered his brain, only to be quickly dismissed, since he recognized that if his captors had wished to dispose of him they had already had ample opportunities. Nevertheless the sherbet water was drugged, and it had the result of sending the Sub to sleep for several hours.
He awoke, feeling considerably refreshed, to find that young Farnworth was sitting up in bed and regarding him with eagerness.
"Thought you'd never wake up, sir," he remarked. "You've been sleeping heavily for at least twelve hours."
"How are you feeling?" asked Dick.
"Pretty rotten," admitted the midshipman. "Head feels like a block of wood. But it isn't that: it's the beastly knowledge that we are off the fun for the time being."
"You put up a jolly stiff fight, anyhow."
"I did my best," replied Farnworth modestly; "but it's beastly humiliating being collared like this, and not knowing how things are going. There's a Turkish bluejacket hanging about——"
"I know," said Dick. "A fellow who made a point of stating that he was our friend. Why I can't make out."