“Let’s get a better hold with the rope, mates,” said Rogers, “and haul the beggar right up on deck. They’re artful beggars is sharks, and if we leave him here he’d as like as not to come to life, shove a few stitches in the cut in his tail, and go off to sea again.”
The men laughed, and the prize was hauled right up to the perpendicular wall below the tackle, willing hands making the quivering mass fast, and hauling it right up into the gap, and beyond all possibility of its again reaching the sea.
Chapter Forty.
A good deal had been done to make the way easy, but still it was an arduous and hot climb up to the flagstaff, on his way to which Syd had found time, in case they had not heard, to announce the sail in sight to Mr Dallas and the boatswain.
There it was, sure enough, a vessel in full sail right away in the east; and as Syd gazed at it through the glass, his spirits sank.
“It isn’t the Sirius,” he said, as he handed the glass to Roylance.
“No, sir,” said the man on the look-out; “she’s a Frenchy, I think.”
“How do you know it isn’t the Sirius?” said Roylance, as he used the glass.