But sleep overcame them at last, and they lay insensible to the fact that about midnight a light was hoisted at the mast-head, which was answered about an hour after by the appearance of another light in the mouth of the river--a light which gradually crept nearer and nearer till about an hour before dawn, when the boys were awakened by a soft bumping against the lugger's side, followed by a dull creaking, and then came the hurrying to and fro of feet on the deck overhead.
"Quick, Mike!" cried Vince--"into your clothes.

She's sinking!" As they hurried on a few things, the passing to and fro of men grew louder; they heard the captain's voice giving orders, evidently for the lowering of a boat, and the boys tried to fling open the door and rush on deck.
Tried--but that was all.
"Mike, we're locked in!" cried Vince frantically; and he began to kick at the door, shouting with Mike for help.
Their appeal was so vigorous that they did not have to wait for long.
There was the sound of the captain's heavy boots as he blundered down the ladder, and he gave a tremendous kick at the door.
"Yah!" he roared: "vat for you make zat row ?" "The lugger! She's sinking," cried the boys together.
"I com in and sink you," roared the captain.

"Go to sleep, bose of you." "But the door's locked." "Yais, I lock him myself.

_Silence_!" Then the lugger was not sinking; but the faint creaking and grinding went on after the captain had gone back on deck, and the boys stood listening to the orders given and the hurrying to and fro of men.
"She must be on a rock, Cinder," said Mike, in a half-stifled voice.
"No rocks here.

On a sandbank, and they're trying to get her off." Then there was a rattling and banging noise, which came through the bulkhead.
"Why, they're taking up the hatches over the hold." "Yes," said Vince bitterly; "they're thinking more of saving the bales than of us." "Down vis you, and pass 'em up," cried the captain; and, for what seemed to be quite a couple of hours, they could hear the crew through the bulkhead busy in the hold fetching out and passing up the bales on to the deck in the most orderly way, and without a bit of excitement.
"Can't be much danger," said Vince at last, "or they wouldn't go on so quietly as this." "I don't know," said Mike bitterly; "it must be bad, and they will forget us at last, and we shall be drowned, shut up here." "Don't make much difference," said Vince, with a laugh.