'Out of the Dardanelles last, and before that from Kilid Bahr,' Ken answered. 'We're escaped prisoners.'
'Gosh, you've been in warm places, young fellers,' said the other, 'but I kind o' think it's a case of out of the frying pan into the fire.'
'Fire's better than water, specially when it's as cold as the Straits,' said Roy with a shiver.
'Well, maybe that's so,' replied the other. 'Get you gone below, the both o' you. You'll find a fire in the galley and the cook'll give ye some hot cocoa.'
'Thanks awfully,' said Ken and Roy in one breath, and hurried off at once.
The cook, a lean, solemn-faced man named Lemuel Gill, showed no surprise whatever at the sudden apparition of two half-drowned strangers. But if he asked no questions he was not stingy with the cocoa, and Roy and Ken put away a quart of it between them, and openly declared they had never tasted anything so good in all their lives.
Their praise seemed to please Gill, for he proceeded to cut some gigantic sandwiches out of stale bread and excellent cold boiled pork, and to these also the hungry youngsters did justice.
'What ship is this?' asked Ken, when the first pangs of hunger had been satisfied.
'"Maid o' Sker." Mine—sweeper. Skipper, Seth Grimball,' was the brief answer. Then, after a pause, 'Where did you blokes come from?'
Ken told him, or rather began to, for before he had finished, the steady beat of the engines suddenly slackened.