“That’s a queerer position, ain’t it, eh? Well, don’t you come for to go to call me a common sailor again, drat ye.”
A great mastiff dog came along and licked Harry’s face, and then lay down beside him. Harry put an arm round the noble dog’s neck and patted and caressed him.
By and by there arose on deck an immense noise and shouting, rattling of chains, and trampling of feet, and high above all this din the merry notes of a fiddle and a fife, playing lively airs. (When heaving windlass or capstan in Greenland ships the fiddler is nearly always ordered to play.)
Said Harry to himself, “It is evident they are having a dance, and no doubt they will keep it up quite a long time. Well, there is little chance of the ship sailing to-night. By and by I’ll slip quietly up and go straight to the captain’s cabin and tell him all and ask him to take me.”
Then he began to think of home, of his mother and father, of Eily and of Andrew—and in a few minutes, lo and behold! our hero was fast asleep.
When he awoke it was inky dark where he lay, only at some distance he could see the glimmer of the galley fire, and see the old, bald cook moving about at his duties.
The great dog still lay beside him, and some kind hand had thrown a rug over the pair of them.
But the vessel was no longer still, she was slowly pitching and rolling, in a way that told Harry, novice though he was, that they were at sea.
There was no noise on deck now, only occasionally the steady tread of heavy footsteps was audible, or the flop-flap of canvas, or a quick, sharp word of command, followed by an “Ay, ay, sir,” and the rattling of the rudder-chains.