He rose from his seat and turned to recross the deck, when he was tripped and thrown on his back so suddenly that there was no time to cry out before some one was kneeling on his chest, with a choking grip on his neck. His eyes fairly popping from his head, David could only gurgle, while he tried to free himself from this attack. The man above him wore the uniform of a _Roanoke_ seaman, this much the cadet could make out, but the shadowy face so close to his own was that of a stranger. He was saying something, but the lad was too dazed to understand it. At length the repetition of two or three phrases beat a slow way into David's brain: