here kris. Hitch it on that cord."

As he spoke the captain threw down the thin line with which the Malay
had been bound, the poor wretch snatching at it frantically; but as he
did so it was pulled away from his despairing clutch.

"I could noose him," drawled Jack Penny coolly. "I've often caught
father's rams like that."

"Yes, but your father's rams hadn't got knives," said the captain
grimly.

"No, but they'd got horns," said Jack quietly. "Ain't going to drown
him, are you?"

"Not I, boy; he'll drown himself if we leave him alone."

"I don't like to see fellows drown," said Jack; and he left the bulwarks
and sat down on the hatchway edge. "Tell a fellow when it's all over,
Joe Carstairs."

"Help, help!" came hoarsely from the poor wretch; and my hands grew wet
inside, and a horrible sensation seemed to be attacking my chest, as I
watched the struggles of the drowning man with starting eyes. For
though he swam like a fish, the horror of his situation seemed to have
unnerved him, and while he kept on swimming, it was with quick wearying
effort, and he was sinking minute by minute lower in the water.

"For Heaven's sake, throw the poor wretch a rope, captain," said the
doctor.

"What! to come aboard and knife some of us?" growled the captain.
"Better let him drown. Plenty of better ones than him to be had for a
pound a month."

"Oh, captain!" I cried indignantly, for my feelings were too much for
me; and I seized a rope just as the Malay went down, after uttering a
despairing shriek.

"Let that rope alone, boy," said the skipper with a grim smile. "There,
he's come up again. Ketch hold!" he cried, and he threw his line so
that the Malay could seize it, which he did, winding it round and round
one arm, while the slowly-sailing schooner dragged him along through the
sea. "I'm only giving him a reg'lar good squencher, doctor. I don't
want him aboard with a spark left in him to break out again: we've had
enough of that. Haul him aboard, lads, and shove him in the chain
locker to get dry. We'll set him ashore first chance."

The Malay was hauled aboard with no very gentle hands by the white
sailors, and as soon as he reached the deck he began crawling to the
captain's feet, to which he clung, with gesture after gesture full of
humility, as ha talked excitedly in a jargon of broken English and
Malay.

"That's what I don't like in these fellows," said Jack Penny quietly;
"they're either all bub