"You
might have been left to drown with small loss to honest men. However,
as you are now on board the frigate, you may remain, and we will see to
what use we can put you. You have a companion, I understand. Is he a
sailor?"

"Yes!" I answered, somewhat incautiously. "He spent his early life at
sea, and visited many strange parts with my late father, Captain
Bracewell."

"So much the better for him. He shall serve on board, and I will order
his name to be entered on the books."

From the way we were first received, we fancied that we should have been
treated like young gentlemen, but on his ordering us with an oath to go
forward and do what we were told, such we found was not the captain's
intention. We obeyed, for we had no choice. On our way we encountered
a big fellow with a knotted rope in his hand, who, from the chain with a
whistle hanging to it round his neck, we knew was the boatswain.

"Come along, my young masters. I'll soon find tasks for you. You!" he
exclaimed, seizing Dick, "go and help the cook in the galley, you two
will pick oakum," he added, turning to Lancelot and me; "and when the
hands are sent aloft to reef sails, as you seem active fellows, you'll
go to the foretop-gallant yard."

"But I have never been aloft," said Lancelot, "and shan't know what to
do when I get there."

"Then the sooner you go the faster you'll learn, or you'll have a taste
of my persuader," and he flourished the knotted rope. "Up, both of you,
and let me see how you can lay out on the yard."

As we hesitated, flourishing the rope, he laid it across our shoulders,
at which the men standing by laughed and jeered at us. To remonstrate
was useless, so to avoid a repetition of the unpleasant infliction, we
sprang into the rigging and began to mount, taking care to hold tight as
we went up until we got into the top, where we both stood looking down,
not liking to go higher.

"Aloft with you, aloft, or I'll send a couple of hands to start you,"
shouted the boatswain from the deck.

We looked up at the tall mast swaying to and fro, and I fully expected,
should I make the attempt, to fall down on deck, or to be plunged into
the sea, for which I had no wish; but looking down for a moment, and
seeing two men about to come up the rigging, I told Lancelot that I
would run the chance.

"It is the only thing we can do," he answered.

Catching hold of the topmast shrouds, we began to mount. We got up at
length, an