"No one else, sir," Tom said, and then followed the doctor aft. A
basin of soup and a glass of sherry did wonders for the boys, and in
an hour they proceeded to the captain's cabin, dressed in clothes
which the doctor had borrowed from two of the midshipmen for them,
for their own could never be worn again; indeed, they had not brought
their jackets from the raft, those garments having shrunk so from the
water, that the boys had not been able to put them on again, after
first taking them off to dry.

The doctor accompanied them, and in the captain's cabin they found the
first lieutenant, who had been in charge of the boat which picked them
up.

"I am glad to see you looking so much better," the captain said as
they entered. "Sit down. Do you know," he went on with a smile, "I
do not think that any of us would have slept had you not recovered
sufficiently to tell your story to-night. We have been puzzling over
it in vain. How you two boys came to be adrift alone on a raft, made
up of three water-kegs, as Mr. Armstrong tells me, and how you came to
have two bugles with you on the raft, is altogether beyond us."

"The last matter is easily explained, sir," Tom said. "My brother and
myself are buglers in H.M.'s Regiment of Norfolk Rangers, and as we
were on duty when we went overboard, we had our bugles slung over our
shoulders."

"Buglers!" the captain said in surprise. "Why from your appearance and
mode of expressing yourselves, I take you to be gentlemen's sons."

"So we are, sir," Tom said quietly, "and I hope gentlemen--at any