starboard bulwark, keeping my
hands thereon for a few paces, till becoming bolder I stepped out more,
but stumbled directly over something big and soft, and went sprawling on
the deck.

I felt that all was over, as I went down noisily, and springing up,
hesitated as to what I should do, but not for long. The fore-shrouds
were close at hand, and feeling for them I drew myself up, ascending
higher and higher as I heard some one coming rapidly from aft till he
was close beneath me, and catching his foot in the same obstacle as had
thrown me, he too went down heavily, and scrambled up, cursing.

My heart throbbed more heavily than before as the voice told me it was
Jarette, though for the moment I did not grasp the fact that his fall
had been my safety. For naturally attributing the noise he had heard to
the object over which he had fallen, he began to kick and abuse and call
the obstacle, in a low tone, all the drunken idiots and dogs he could
lay his tongue to.

"And I run all these risks for such a brute as you," he snarled; "but
wait a little, my dear friend, and you shall see."

I was in hopes he was going away, but he only went to the
forecastle-hatch, where to my horror he called down to the men carousing
below to bring a lantern; and feeling that my only chance was to climb
higher, I crept up step by step, ratline by ratline, till the light
appeared and four men stumbled out on to the deck. Then I stood still,
hugging the ropes and looking down, certain, as everything below was so
plain, that in a few moments I must be seen, perhaps to become a target
for Jarette's bullets.

There on the deck lay the tipsy sailor over whom I had fallen, and about
ten feet away there was another.

"Haul these brutes down below!" said Jarette, fiercely; and in a slow
surly way first one and then the other was dragged to the hatchway and
lowered down, with scant attention to any injuries which might accrue.

So intent was every one upon the task in hand that not an eye was cast
upwards, and it was with a devout feeling of thankfulness that I saw the
man who carried the lantern follow his comrades, the last rays of the
light falling upon Jarette's features as he stood by the hatchway.

"Now then," he said savagely, "no more drinking to-night. There'll be
wind before morning, and you'll have to make sail."

"All right, skipper," said the man with a half-laugh, and he and his
lantern disappeared, while I clung there listeni