“Very well, Hester,” and the latter walked forward. Nearly half an hour later Ralph saw him at the scuttle-butt drinking a glass of water.
“Why don’t you turn in?” he inquired.
“I’m going to, sir; I had an important message to deliver to an oiler named Collins. I’ve just been to the hospital where his wife is sick. I’ve been there several times to-day and I wanted to tell Collins about her. I’m going to turn in now.”
“How is she?” asked Ralph much interested.
“Pretty sick, I’m afraid, Mr. Osborn,” replied Hester, leaving.
“I must have made an impression on that fine fellow,” reflected Ralph, “for him to have remembered my name. Well, I wish midnight would come; I’m getting sleepy.”
He walked up and down the forecastle; it seemed a long hour to him. He did not know that just inside the open door of the superstructure a pair of dark, anxious eyes were watching his every move. Finally, at five minutes of twelve, Ralph left the forecastle to wake up Creelton.
At that instant a man quickly ran out on the deck, jumped up on the lower boom from which the catamaran, a square ended boat used by the men who paint the ship’s side, was tied, and hauled up the catamaran; he slid into this, and with feverish hands untied the boat’s painter, cast it off and commenced to scull rapidly away.
Ralph had called Creelton and came out of the midshipmen’s sleeping quarters to the port side of the ship’s side. His eyes immediately lit upon the boat, and in the bright moonlight he could see the vigorous work of the man sculling. He looked at the port boom and saw the catamaran was missing, and he immediately knew that some one was running away with it. Though he did not have much time to think he realized that this was happening during his watch and he might be held responsible for not having prevented it, and that his reputation might suffer badly.
“Boat ahoy!” he shouted and then running aft to the quarter-deck, called out at the top of his voice: “A man is running away with the catamaran, sir.”