I'd never have got here."

"You are just in time, mate; for we are off to the river's mouth in a
twinkling. Here, why, look alive! he's awful bad."

With Jack's help they got Dick Colley on board and down below, where
the ship's surgeon bandaged the swollen ankle, and Jack stood by with
Toby.

In the general hurry of departure, when the captain gave the word, no
one noticed Jack, or if they noticed him, concluded that he was aboard
the _Galatea_ as a passenger, of which there were a few.

It was not till they were well out to sea that the captain, coming down
into the mate's berth, said--

"Hallo, Colley! who's the youngster aboard with the curly hair? What's
he about?"

"He wants to work his way out, captain; set him to it. I promised I'd
say a word for him. He just helped me across the sand, when I was
pretty near dying of the pain. You'll let him stay?"

The captain turned on his heel, somewhat sulkily.

"Do you suppose he's to do the work of your lame foot, eh? Well, he
hasn't come here to eat the bread of idleness. I'll soon show him
that."

And the captain kept his word.

Long before the sun--which had risen in a cloudless sky that
morning--had set behind a bank of clouds, Jack was put to work.

Washing the decks and performing other like offices fell to his share
on that first bright day, when to sail over the blue calm sea, with the
crisp air blowing from the great German Ocean, was a pleasant sensation
in itself.

But night came on, and the stars looked down from their immeasurable
depths; and Jack, lying on a bench, with his arms folded, and his face
resting on them, had time to think.

He had done it now. Often, when in a storm of passion he had said he
would leave his aunt's roof for ever, he had relented, and even at his
mother's instigation and entreaty had expressed sorrow for his burst of
anger, and asked to be forgiven.

He had done this only a fortnight before, and his aunt had received his
apology with a short--

"It's all very well to think by saying you are sorry you make it all
right. It's deeds not words, for me."

This ungracious manner of receiving an expression of contrition had
often hardened the boy's heart against his aunt. Still more so when,
from the other side of the parlour, Mr. Skinner would say, in a nasal,
squeaky voice--

"It's a wonder to me how your kind, generous aunt puts up with you for
a single hour. Only a good woman like her would give you h