ding the
steps I beheld five or six men standing in a sort of waiting and
listening posture under the skylight. Instantly my left arm was
gripped by the man who had asked me to step below, while another
fellow, equally powerful, and equally ruffianly in appearance, grasped
me by the right arm.

"'Now,' said the first man, 'if you make the least bit of noise or
give us any trouble, we'll cut your throat. We don't intend to do you
any harm, but we want your services, and you'll have to do what we
require without any fuss. If not, you're a dead man.'

"So saying, they threw open the door of a berth, ran me into it, shut
the door, and shot the lock. I had been so completely taken by
surprise that I was in a manner stunned. I stood in the middle of the
cabin just where the fellows had let go of me, staring around,
breathing short and fierce, my mind almost a blank. But I quickly
rallied my wits. I understood I had been kidnapped; by what sort of
people I could not imagine, but beyond question because I understood
navigation, as I had told the man. I listened, but heard no noise of
voices, nor movements of people in the cabin. Through the planks,
overhead, however, came the sound of a rapid tread of feet,
accompanied by the thud of coils of rope flung hastily down. The cabin
porthole was a middling-sized, circular window. I saw the whaler in it
as in a frame. I unscrewed the port, but with no intention to cry out,
never doubting for a moment from the looks of the men that they would
silence me in some bloody fashion as had been threatened.

"Just as I pulled the port open a voice overhead sang out: 'Get back
to your ship, you three men; your mate has consented to stop with us
as we're in want of a navigator.'

"'Let him tell us that himself,' said one of my men; 'let him show up.
What ha' ye done with him?'

"'Be off,' roared one of the people, in a savage, hurricane note.

"There was a little pause as of astonishment on the part of the boat's
crew--I could not see them, the boat lay too far astern,--but after a
bit I heard the splash of oars, the boat swept into the sphere of the
porthole, and I beheld her making for the barque.

"I was now sensible, however, not only by observing the whaler to
recede, but by hearing the streaming and rippling of broken waters
along the bends, that the people of the brig had in some fashion
trimmed sail and filled upon the vessel. We were under way. The barque
slided out of the comp