the other boys who stood looking on.

"After him!" yelled the middy to his men, as he stood stamping one foot
in his excitement; and then turning to Aleck: "If the cat don't scratch
his back for this my name's not Wrighton."

The communication was made in quite a friendly, confidential way, which
brought a response from Aleck:

"He'll be too quick for them. The young dogs are as quick as congers."

"You wait and you'll see. I'll make an example of him."

All this passed quickly enough, while the boy in the red cap, feeling
quite confident in his powers of flight, turned again to jeer and shout
at the sailors, whom he derided with impudent remarks about their
fatness of person, weight of leg, and stupidity generally, till he
judged it dangerous to wait any longer, when he went off like a
clockwork mouse, skimming over the stones, and from the first strides
beginning to leave the sailors behind.

"I told you so," said Aleck. "There he goes. I can run fast, but I
couldn't catch him. Ha, ha, ha! Bravo, Tom!" he cried. "Look at that
sailor!"

For meanwhile Tom Bodger, stick in hand, had made his way back on to the
pier, and just as the boy was going his fastest something followed him
faster, in the shape of the wooden-legged sailor's well-aimed cudgel,
which spun over the surface of the pier, thrown with all the power of
Tom's strong arm, and the next instant it seemed to be tangled up with
the boy's legs, when down he went, kicking, yelling, and struggling to
get up.

"Hi! Oh, my! Help, help!" he yelled at his comrades; but they only
stood staring, while the foremost sailors passed on so as to block the
way of escape, and the next instant the offender was hemmed in by a half
circle of pursuers, who formed an arc, the chord being the edge of the
pier, beneath which was the deep, clear water.

"There," cried the middy, triumphantly. "Got him!" Then to his men:
"Bring the young brute here."

Meanwhile, as the boy lay yelping and howling in a very dog-like
fashion, the laughing sailors began to close in, and then suddenly made
a dart to seize their quarry, but only to stand gazing down into the
harbour.

For, in pain before from the contact of the stick and his heavy fall,
but in agony now from the dread of being caught, the boy kept up the
dog-like character of his actions by going on all fours over two or
three yards, and then, as hands were outstretched to seize him, he
leaped right off the pier edge