"Ja," agreed Peter. "You see dot shiny picture oop there?"
He indicated a golden sunburst, carved across the stern beneath the cabin windows. 'Twas a minor tragedy in my great-uncle's life that he was without the gold-leaf to make this part of his ship as immaculate as the rest. The constant battering of following seas had cracked and diminished the gilding, but the ridges and niches of the carving were still visible.
"Yes," I answered, puzzled.
"I climb oop on der rudder, andt I holdt me on to der roundness in der middle. Andt you climb oop on my shoulders andt into der cabin windows, ja."
"You can't hold me up in that position, Peter!" I exclaimed. "'Twould be all you could do to maintain yourself."
"I do it, ja," insisted Peter.
"But you? How will you——"
"You t'row me a rope."
He scrambled on to the rudder and slowly spread-eagled himself upward against the scrollwork which covered the stern. His hands, feeling blindly above his head, sought for and found a deep indentation in the rays below the center of the sunburst, and with this to cling to, he climbed a foot or two higher on to a shallow ridge which ran across the stern, a shelf scarce wide enough to give him toehold. His grip shifted with lightning precision, his fingers clamping themselves about the embossed figure of the sun, deeply carven for relief.
"Now you climb, Bob," he grunted.