n hatchway, Mr Jellaby was able
at last to get near enough to hear the voice of the man, who was a most
ragged and miserable-looking creature, and was yelling out wildly as if
he were insane in the intervals of his frantic motions, when there was a
lull in the noise of the waves.

"He's saying something, doctor," he cried to Dr Nettleby, who had
pluckily followed him up close, albeit so much older a man. "See if you
can make him out; I don't understand the lingo."

The doctor listened for a moment and shook his head.

"It's no language that I can recognise," he said after a pause, as if
thinking over all the dialects he had ever come across in his
wanderings. "The poor chap has evidently gone mad and is jabbering some
gibberish or other. Look how his eyes are rolling!"

By this time, however, I had managed to come up to where Mr Jellaby and
the doctor were holding on to the backstay, and as the wind just then
dropped for an instant and the deafening din of the clashing waters
ceased, I caught a word or two out of a long sentence which the
unfortunate man screamed out at the moment at the top of his voice.

"He's talking Spanish, sir!" I exclaimed, much to the surprise of my
seniors. "I can make out something that sounds like `por Dios,' which
means `for the love of God,' sir."

"Indeed!" said Mr Jellaby, gripping hold of one of the clewlines which
hung down from the broken yard and swayed about in the wind, preparing
to swing himself across the encumbered deck to the port shrouds beyond,
where the man was lashed. "I didn't know you were so good a linguist,
young Vernon. By Jove, you'll be of more use than I thought you would
be when the commander told me to take you with me."

"Oh!" I cried, rather shamefaced at this, "I only know a little of the
language. I learnt it when I was in the West Indies with my father. We
lived in one of the islands where there were a lot of Spaniards, and I
heard their lingo spoken often enough."

"Well, anyway, it's lucky that you know something about it now, for you
can keep your ears cocked and hear what the poor beggar says, while we
try to release him from his uncomfortable billet. Here, Bates, bear a
hand!"

So saying, Mr Jellaby swung himself across the frothing chasm that lay
between him and the object of his pity, with the coxswain of the cutter
after him, while Dr Nettleby and I remained by the mainmast bitts,
Corporal Macan busying himself in getting the docto