I feel that I can do justice to the theme, so here is my faithful description of that storm.
A horrid wet, stifling, flogging row.
That’s all I can recollect. That’s all I’m sure that the doctor could recollect, or the captain or anybody else. We were just about drowned and stunned, and when we came to ourselves it was because the storm had passed over.
“What cheer, ho!” shouted the captain, and we poor flogged and drenched objects sat up and looked about us, to find that the waves had lifted the schooner off the rocks, and driven her a long way out of her course; that the sails that had been set were blown to ribbons; and finally that the schooner, with the last exception, was very little the worse for the adventure.
“She ain’t made no water much,” said the captain, after going below; “and—here, I say, where’s that Malay scoundrel?”
“Down in the cabin—locked in,” said an ill-used voice; and I rubbed the salt-water out of my eyes, and stared at the tall thin figure before me, leaning up against the bulwark as if his long thin legs were too weak to support his long body, though his head was so small that it could not have added very much weight.
“Why, hallo! Who the blue jingo are you?” roared the skipper.
The tall thin boy wrinkled up his forehead, and did not answer.
“Here, I say, where did you spring from?” roared the captain.
The tall thin boy took one hand out of his trousers’ pocket with some difficulty, for it was so wet that it clung, and pointed down below.