"Boy!" a voice bellowed from somewhere in the bowels of the ship.
"Yea, yea, master," cried the boy, and with that he scurried from the cabin like a startled chick.
Phil raised his head and renewed his hold, for he could not cling there forever; yet how to introduce himself on board the ship was a question that sorely puzzled him. He threw a bare leg over the sill, the more easily to rest, and revolved the problem in his mind. They were plainly honest Englishmen, and right glad would he have been to get himself in among them. Yet if he came like a thief in the night, they must suspect him of evil intentions without end. While he thus attacked the problem from one side and from the other, it occurred to him that the best way was to crawl down again into the water and swim back to the shore from whence he had come. There, having donned his clothes, he would call for help. Surely there was no one so hard of heart as to refuse a lad help in escaping from the pirates.
He raised his leg to swing it out of the window again and put his scheme into practice, when he felt—and it startled him nearly out of his skin—a hand lay hold on his ankle.
If you will balance yourself on the outside of any window with one foot over the sill, you will find it exceedingly difficult to pull your foot away from some one inside the window without throwing yourself off the wall, and Phil for the moment was reluctant to make the plunge. Slowly at first he twisted and pulled, but to no purpose. With waxing vigour he struggled and yanked and kicked and jerked, but completely failed to get his ankle out of the hand that held it.
It seemed that a gentleman who had been sitting at a little desk, so placed that Phil could not have seen it without thrusting his head all the way into the cabin, had looked up, and, perceiving to his mild surprise a naked foot thrust in through the window, had nimbly arisen, and stepping lightly toward the foot, had seized the ankle firmly at the moment when Phil was about to withdraw it.
The gentleman marvelled much at what he had discovered and purposed to get at the reason for it. Not only did he succeed with ease in holding the ankle fast against his captive's somewhat cautious first kicks; he anticipated a more desperate effort by getting firm hold with both hands, so that when his captive decided to risk all, so to speak, and tried with might and main to fling himself free and into the water by a great leap, the gentleman kept fast his hold and held the lad by his one leg, who dangled below like a trapped monkey.
Very likely it was foolish of Philip Marsham to attempt escaping, but as I have said he was of no mind to be caught thus like a thief entering in the night, and he was so completely surprised that he had no time at all to collect his wits before he acted. Yet caught he was, and, for a bad bargain, hung by the heels to boot.
"Boy," the gentleman said, and his voice indicated that he had a droll humour, "call Captain Winterton."
The boy, further sounds revealed, who had come silently and in leisure, departed noisily and in haste.