“Humph!” grunted Jack. “Everybody and everything seems to like you, old chap.”
Phil said nothing, but he thought a good deal, knowing only too well as he did that his friend Jack was not right. For there were several other boys on board who, seeing the favour in which the little new-comer stood, were not long in trying to make his young life a burden. All far bigger and stronger, they soon began to persecute him when they found a chance, one of their favourite plans being to, as they called it, “chivvy him” and hunt him about the vessel.
Soon after dawn one morning Phil had crept on deck to stand looking over the bulwark through the soft grey light at the scattered vessels sailing slowly along, when all at once a faint whish caught his ear, and turning sharply he saw one of his persecutors creeping cautiously towards him, followed by half-a-dozen more, while a couple had crossed the deck and were ready to cut him off if he attempted to retreat in that direction.
Phil glanced towards the forecastle hatch, but there was a boy rising from the square opening, and he turned to look aft, but only to see that other lads were waiting there. For the enemy had taken steps to cut him off in every direction, and the little fellow looked wildly round for a way of escape, and then made a rush to pass through his tormentors, who cut him off at once and with a cry of delight dashed in.
It was all very quickly done; first one and then another of the lads nearly had him, but active as a monkey that has no dealings with powder, Phil dodged, feinted, and dodged again, brushing by the foremost of his pursuers, making for the starboard
bulwark, and reaching the foremast shrouds before the first boy could recover himself.
The last was after him, though, directly, but too late; for with a bound Phil had sprung up, caught at the nearest rope, swung himself on to the rail, and then begun swarming up the rigging, a mere morsel of a fellow, as he dragged himself up from ratline to ratline, mounting higher and higher towards the foretop.
Sure of him now, the boys uttered a low cry of delight, and while two made for the starboard shrouds to follow him, a couple more made for the larboard, or port, as they call them now, while the rest gathered below.
“Take a turn round him with the halyards!” whispered one boy, from the deck, “and then send him down to us.”