But it was all in vain: Jack and his young companion were torn apart, hurried down the stairs and out on to the Strand, and a few minutes later the boy was set at liberty, to spring to Jack’s side, panting with excitement as he clung to him tightly; but it was with the water rippling and pattering against the bows of the boat which was being rowed rapidly out of the harbour towards the bay. Not long after, as the coxswain’s boat-hook caught a ring, the boat glided against the towering side of a great line of battleship, and the two prisoners were hurried up on deck, and Jack Jeens in spite of all protestations was made one of the crew of HMS Victory, and his little companion, the youngest boy on board, without a chance of setting foot ashore again.
For at sunrise the sails were shaken out, and the great man-of-war with its tiers of guns was soon after leading the way down Channel in search of England’s enemies, followed by the British Fleet, while the news that the fleet was commanded by Admiral Nelson seemed to Jack Jeens and the little fellow with whom he had become so strangely associated only so many empty words.
Chapter Three.
Jack Jeens sat upon the bottom of an upturned bucket with his elbows resting upon his knees, gazing down at his young companion of the previous night’s adventure, who was half sitting, half lying, upon the lower deck of the great ship, close to the open port-hole, through which the morning light shone upon his face as he went on eating a biscuit, through the edge of which his keen pearly-white teeth passed like those of a mouse.
It was light enough close to the boy, but all inward was very gloomy, and every here and there a lanthorn was burning dimly, although it was morning.
There was plenty of noise and bustle going on about the deck where the lanthorns burned, and the trampling of feet, and shouts that sounded like orders came now and then; but the principal sound just there by the port-hole through which the light came was the crunch, crunch, crunch of the biscuit.
At last Jack Jeens spoke.
“It caps me,” he said. “Seems wonderful. Here you are, just aboard ship for the first time, and ’stead o’ being badly and sick, eating away like a reg’lar biscuit nibbler.”