"Who are you?" demanded the lieutenant.
"I and my mate, here, got adrift from the Santa Maria during that storm, night before last. We've been on the wreck nearly two nights and a day. Ran into her in the dark, caught a trailing rope and climbed aboard."
"These are the lads you were looking for, captain?" asked the lieutenant, turning to Captain Nemo, Jr.
"Yes," was the reply.
"Then you're in luck to find them. What was that shooting a while ago? It was that that brought us in this direction."
"Sixty and a boat's crew," explained Dick, "tried to get on the brig. My mate and I held 'em off with rifles, because we knew him for a treacherous swab who had thrown our raggie, Motor Matt, over the rail of the Santa Maria——"
"Did Sixty do that?" cut in the officer, sternly.
"Yes," spoke up Matt.
"Go on," proceeded the officer, laconically, turning to Dick.
"Well," went on Dick, "when Sixty found he couldn't board the brig, he went back to the schooner. They had a bow chaser, and another small cannon over the stern. They let drive at us, then rounded in on the other side and let drive again, covering the movements of two boats' crews who laid us aboard. The last shot splintered the bulwarks and brought down my chum here."