"Yes, sir, we're shanghaied," repeated Tony, looking over his shoulder at the lights on shore, which appeared to be moving away from the ship, and going faster and faster as the minutes flew by. "That's what's the matter of me an' you an' Bob. We've been stole from our homes an' friends an' tooken to sea agin our will."
"No!" gasped Roy, who was almost paralyzed by these ominous words. "It can't be possible."
"That's what the matter of us, an' you'll find it so."
"But I'll not go. I don't belong aboard this ship, and the captain has no business to take me to sea against my will."
"Small odds it makes to the likes of him whether he's got any business to do it or not,"
[Pg 195]
 answered Tony, who, far from showing the least sign of anger over the outrage of which he was the victim, seemed disposed to accept his fate with as much fortitude as he was able to command. "Where have you lived all your life, that you don't know that that's the way shipmasters sometimes do when they can't raise a crew as fast as they want to? They get men aboard their vessels an' run away with 'em. That's what they are doin' with us."
"But I'll not do duty, I tell you," exclaimed Roy, fairly dazed by the gloomy prospect before him. "I can't, for I am not a sailor. Let's go down and tell the captain to luff and let us off."
"'Twon't do no good," answered Tony, with a sigh of resignation. "He'll only swear at you an' say that the mates will very soon break you in an' larn you your duty. We're in for a long, hard voyage, an' might as well give up all thoughts of gettin' ashore first as last."
"Never!" said Roy, wrathfully. "If there is such a thing—"
"Lay down from aloft!" shouted a voice
[Pg 196]
 from the deck, following up the command with a volley of oaths and threats that were enough to make a landsman shudder.
"Ay, ay, sir," replied Tony. "Why don't you say the same, lad? You've got to come to it, for it will be worse for you if you don't. There ain't the least use in kickin', for Cap'n Jack has got us hard an' fast."
Roy, who could plainly hear the beating of his heart above the howling of the gale, which seemed to be increasing in fury every moment, followed Tony to the deck, and immediately made his way aft to demand an interview with the captain. He found him easily—at least he found the man who went below with the lantern—and thus addressed him:
"Captain, I thought you were going into the harbor for shelter, but I find you are going to sea. Will you luff long enough to let me and my crew get into our boat and shove off?"
To Roy's surprise and indignation the captain did not appear to be listening to him at all. He kept his gaze fastened upon something ahead of the ship, and now and then turned to give an order to the man at the wheel. If Roy
[Pg 197]
 had only known it, he was forcing himself upon the captain's notice at a most critical time. The latter was trying to take his vessel out of the bay without the aid of a pilot, and of course his attention was so fully occupied that he had neither the leisure nor the inclination to listen to any requests or complaints.
"Starboard a spoke or two. Steady at that. Mr. Crawford," shouted the captain, addressing one of his mates, "if that man with the lead can't speak so that I can hear him, knock him overboard and put somebody else in his place. How close to the light-ship can I run in this tide?"
"If you don't run in closer than you are now you'll be aground in a minute more," was the reply that was shouted aft. "Quarter less three on the port bow."
Roy paid little attention to this conversation, though he thought of it afterward, for it was a most fortunate thing for him that the vessel was obliged to run within a stone's throw of the light-ship. He wanted the skipper to speak to him.
[Pg 198]
"Captain," said he in a louder tone, at the same time drawing a step nearer and taking the unwarrantable liberty to pluck him by the coat-sleeve. "Captain, will you please—"
"What do you want here?" thundered the angry skipper, kicking at the boy with his heavy boot. But the words, which came just a second or two before the kick, served as a warning of what might be expected, and when the captain's boot got where he had been, Roy wasn't there. He dodged out of the way very cleverly, and raised his voice in useless remonstrance.
"Do you know who you are kicking at?" he exclaimed. "I am not one of your crew to be driven about in this fashion. I came aboard under a misapprehension, and want to go ashore. My boat is alongside."
What the skipper would have said or done if it had not been for something that happened just then, I don't pretend to know. Beyond a doubt he would have made the free-spoken Roy sup sorrow with a big spoon, if Tony and Bob had not unwittingly created a diversion in his favor. When they saw Roy standing so near
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 the captain they took heart, and came aft to say a word for themselves, but repented of it when the enraged skipper undertook to drive the boy forward with a kick. But then it was too late for them to escape punishment for their assurance in venturing into the captain's presence without being asked. One of the mates saw them when they went aft, and made it his business to follow them with a piece of rope in his hand. Roy saw him swing it in the air and knew what he meant to do with it; but before he had time to shout a warning to the men for whose backs it was intended, the rope fell twice in quick succession, and with such force that Tony and Bob staggered under the blows.
"Lay for'ard, where you belong, and come on the quarter-deck when you've got business here," shouted the mate. He raised the rope to give emphasis to his order, but the two men hurried out of his reach. Then the mate looked at Roy.
"Give him a dose, too, Mr. Crawford," said the captain. "He's no right to come here bothering me at this juncture. You might
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 as well teach him his place one time as another."
Roy opened his lips to protest against such an outrage, but seeing the mate advancing upon him, he turned and took to his heels. In half a minute more he was hauling at a rope in company with somebody whom he took to be Tony; but it proved to be a sailor who was posted in regard to the vessel and her contemplated movements.
"What ship is this?" whispered Roy, trying hard to swallow a big lump that seemed to be rising in his throat.
"The White Squall," was the answer.
"Is she going to sea?"
The sailor prepared to give a profane response to the question, which was so simple that a blind boy ought to have been able to answer it for himself, but when he came to look at Roy he hesitated, and choked back the words that arose to his lips.
"Yes, she's bound out, and you haven't any call to go with her, have you?" said he. "It's a hard case, but I don't see what you can do about it."
[Pg 201]
"Isn't there any law to punish a captain for taking men to sea against their will?" asked Roy.
"Not on the high seas," was the reply. "The only law there is outside is the cap'n's will. How come you aboard here in the first place?"
Roy explained the situation as briefly as he could, whereupon the sailor laughed incredulously.
"That crew of your'n must be into the plot," said he.
"What plot?" inquired Roy.
"Why, isn't there somebody ashore who don't want you there, and who would be glad to have you carried so far away that you would never get back again?"
"Of course there isn't," said Roy, amazed at the idea.
"Then it's mighty strange," continued the sailor, reflectively. "The wind don't blow to hurt anything, and that crew of your'n could have taken you to the city if they had been so minded."
"You're mistaken there. They dared not
[Pg 202]
 turn about for fear our boat would be capsized. It isn't likely that they would have come aboard this ship if they had known that they were going to be kidnapped, would they?"
"Aha!" exclaimed the sailor. "So they have been shanghaied too, have they? Then I can't understand the matter at all. No, they wouldn't have come here if they had known that, for I have heard that the cap'n is one of the worst brutes that any poor chap ever sailed under."
"Then why do you sail with him? Were you shanghaied, too?"
"Oh no; I was shipped all straight enough, but, bless you, I never knew what sort of a craft I was getting onto till it was too late to back out. But I never expect to reach Canton alive."
"Canton?" cried Roy. "Is that where this ship is bound?"
"It's the port the old man intends to bring up in if he can keep afloat that long. Being as I'm here, I'm going to do an able seaman's duty as long as I am on top of water. You
[Pg 203]
 say you came off in a boat. Where is she now?"
Roy replied that she was towing alongside.
"Well, look here," said the sailor hastily. "Do you see that flash ahead? It comes from the light-ship. If you know when you are well off, you will jump into that boat of your'n and pull for that light the best you know how. It's your only chance, for I don't believe this old tub will ever see port again."
"So I can," said Roy joyfully. "Will you go with me? and I can tip Tony and Bob the wink and have them go too?"
"Not by no means," said the sailor, as if the idea of such a thing was enough to frighten him. "Take care of yourself, and let the rest do the same. Are you going to try it?" he added, when Roy let go his hold upon the rope and looked around to see what had become of the mate. "Then make a sure thing of it the first time trying. Don't allow yourself to be brought back, for if you do you'll wish you had never been born. You'd better sink right here in the harbor than trust yourself to this
[Pg 204]
 ship and her officers. It don't matter about me, for I am used to hard knocks."
The sailor's earnest words frightened Roy, but did not deter him from carrying out the bold plan he had suddenly formed in his mind. Casting his eye around the deck to make sure that the mate with the rope's end was nowhere in sight, he moved swiftly along the weather rail, until he thought he saw a chance to dart over to the other side without being seen. He crossed the deck with a few quick steps and looked over into the water. There was the boat, still right side up, and her painter was within easy reach of his hand. More than that, as if to encourage him in his desperate resolve, the flash from the light-ship, now close aboard, burst through the gloom, and showed him everything as plainly as though it had been broad daylight. The dark waves with their white caps looked very threatening, but so did the prospect he had before him of making a long voyage under brutal officers and in an unseaworthy vessel.
"It's now or never," thought Roy, shutting his teeth hard and calling all his courage to
[Pg 205]
 his aid. "In five minutes more that light-ship will be so far out of reach—"
Just then something took him full in the eye, and Roy, who had bent over while working at the boat's painter, straightened up with a jerk, and flopped down upon his back. Scarcely realizing what had happened to him, the boy scrambled to his feet only to receive a blow in the other eye, and to hear the mate shout at him, in tones of suppressed fury:
"Going to desert, were you? I expected it, and have had my gaze fastened on you all along. Take that and that, and see if it will do you until I can get a better chance at you."
Did the enraged officer intend to kill him where he lay? Roy wondered, as he raised his arm to ward off the heavy blows from the rope's end that were aimed at his head. It is quite possible that the brute would have disabled him had not the captain, who had witnessed the whole proceeding, called out:
"Cast the boat adrift, Mr. Crawford. That will put an end to all such nonsense."
The officer turned to obey the order, and in an instant Roy was on his feet. At the same
[Pg 206]
 instant, too, the sailor's warning words came into his mind like an inspiration: "Don't allow yourself to be brought back, for if you do you will wish you had never been born. You'd better sink right here in the harbor than trust yourself to this ship and her officers," and something the mate said while he was striking at him with the rope's end satisfied Roy that there was more punishment of some sort coming as soon as the officer could find ............