“Let me get up, mate, and have a look round,” said the smuggler.
“Think he’s safe, Master Aleck?”
“Oh, yes, of course. Let him get up and try if he can make out where we are.”
“But I can’t get him down again if he goes off his head, sir, and tries to turn us out of the boat.”
The smuggler uttered a low, mocking laugh.
“Bit too strong for yer, eh, Tommy?”
“Ay; but you wouldn’t be if I was all here. There; get up then.”
Tom’s legs rattled on the planks of the boat as he rolled himself off and stood up and listened to the smuggler with a low, deep sigh as he sat up, tried to stand, and sat down again in the bottom of the little craft.
“Bit giddy,” he said, apologetically; “things seems to swim round.”
He had put his hands up to his head as he spoke. Then suddenly: