“My glass,” said the captain; and it was quickly fetched from the cabin, adjusted, and he took a long look in the direction pointed out.
“Yes; a small whale or a great grampus basking. Well done, look-out in the crow’s-nest! Better come down now, my lad.”
These words sent the blood coursing to the lad’s cheeks, and he began to descend quickly, thinking now that after all it was a risky position for any one high up there above the deck, and that the sooner he was safely down the better he would like it. Then he took two more steps, and was in the act of taking another when the foot he lowered touched nothing, and he started so violently that the other foot glided from the smooth bar of wood, and he dropped with a jerk to the full extent of his arms, giving his hands such a sharp snatch that he felt them giving way just as he was hanging suspended over seventy feet above the deck. Then they gave way, for, lately as it had been uttered, he had forgotten the Norseman’s carefully given warning.
Chapter Four.
In the Doctor’s Hands.
A cry rose from the deck, and Steve Young in that brief moment felt that all was over, and that he was struck a violent blow in the ribs. Next moment he swung against the starboard shrouds to which he clung, feeling sick and giddy with pain, but awaking to the fact that the big Norwegian sailor had gripped his jacket on the right side and taken up a little fold of flesh as well. The pain was keen for a few moments, but partly ceased as the man thrust his other hand, by which he had held on between the ratlines, and took a good hold of his waistband.
“Now, then, can you get round this side?”
For answer Steve worked himself from the inner to the outer slope of the shrouds just below the cross-bars, and then thrust his legs through and held on, waiting for the fluttering nervous sensation which had attacked him to pass off.