und
shot. Master Aleck! Ahoy! Frightened yerself away, my lad? Here,
quick; come and lend a hand--the boat's going down!"

Tom Bodger talked and shouted, but he did not confine himself to words,
for he saw the extent of the emergency. The boat seemed to be filling
rapidly from the salt fount in the middle prior to going down. So,
acting promptly, he hopped on to the next thwart, down into the water in
the bottom, which came above his stumps, and then on to the next thwart
forward and the locker. From here he put one peg on to the bows and
swung himself on to the lowest step, where he could seize the boat's
painter, fastened to a huge rusty ring in the harbour wall.

It was not many moments' work to cast the rope loose, and then he began
to haul the rope rapidly through the ring, just having time to send the
boat's head on to one of the steps under water, and hanging on with all
his might, while the water rose and rose aft, till, with the bows still
resting on the stone step, the after part of the boat was quite
submerged.

As a rule there were fishermen hanging over the rail on the top of the
cliff a couple of hundred yards or so away, men busy with trawl or seine
net on the smacks and luggers, and a score or two of boys playing about
somewhere on the pier; but there was, as Tom Bodger had said, something
going on in the town, and as soon as those ashore had done watching the
man-o'-war's men and seen them row off, there was a steady human current
setting away from the harbour, and not a listening ear to catch the
sailor's hails and pass the word on for help, as he hung on to the
boat's rope with all his might, feeling assured that if he slacked his
efforts she would glide off the slimy stone and go to the bottom.

"I arn't got no breath to waste in hollering," he panted. "Why, there's
a good fathom and a half or two fathom o' water under her keel, and if I
slack out down she'll go. Wants a couple o' boats to back in, one on
each side, and get a rope under her thwarts. They could get her ashore
then. Oh, dear! oh, dear! oh, dear! For him to leave me in charge, and
then come back and find I've sunk her! I warn't asleep, for I was
standin' up at work, so I couldn't ha' dreamed I heard him come, and see
his shadder cast down. No; it's all true enough. But what could he
have had in his hands? I see his shadder plain, with a something held
up in his hands. Paper, didn't he say, he'd come to fetch? Well,