lf round the
lad's wrist. I bent beside the yard, and peered down. It was as Williams
had said, and I realised how near a thing it had been. Strangely enough,
even at that moment, the thought came to me how little wind there was. I
remembered the wild way in which the sail had lashed at the boy.

All this time, I was busily working, unreeving the port buntline. I took
the end, made a running bowline with it round the gasket, and let the
loop slide down over the boy's head and shoulders. Then I took a strain
on it and tightened it under his arms. A minute later we had him safely
on the yard between us. In the uncertain moonlight, I could just make
out the mark of a great lump on his forehead, where the foot of the sail
must have caught him when it knocked him over.

As we stood there a moment, taking our breath, I caught the sound of the
Second Mate's voice close beneath us. Williams glanced down; then he
looked up at me and gave a short, grunting laugh.

"Crikey!" he said.

"What's up?" I asked, quickly.

He jerked his head backwards and downwards. I screwed round a bit,
holding the jackstay with one hand, and steadying the insensible
Ordinary with the other. In this way I could look below. At first, I
could see nothing. Then the Second Mate's voice came up to me again.

"Who the hell are you? What are you doing?"

I saw him now. He was standing at the foot of the weather t'gallant
rigging, his face was turned upwards, peering round the after side of
the mast. It showed to me only as a blurred, pale-coloured oval in the
moonlight.

He repeated his question.

"It's Williams and I, Sir," I said. "Tom, here, has had an accident."

I stopped. He began to come up higher towards us. From the rigging to
leeward there came suddenly a buzz of men talking.

The Second Mate reached us.

"Well, what's up, anyway?" he inquired, suspiciously. "What's happened?"

He had bent forward, and was peering at Tom. I started to explain; but
he cut me short with:

"Is he dead?"

"No, Sir," I said. "I don't think so; but the poor beggar's had a bad
fall. He was hanging by the gasket when we got to him. The sail knocked
him off the yard."

"What?" he said, sharply.

"The wind caught the sail, and it lashed back over the yard--"

"What wind?" he interrupted. "There's no wind, scarcely." He shifted his
weight on to the other foot. "What do you mean?"

"I mean what I say, Sir. The wind brought the foot of the sail over the