“Hullo!” said Tom at last, “there goes eight bells and the bugle for dinner; come on, Shireen.”
Tom began to go down at once, but lo! when I looked over my heart grew faint and my head felt giddy, and I wouldn’t have ventured after Tom for anything.
“No, no, Tom,” I cried, “save yourself. Never mind me.”
“Why, there is no danger,” he answered. “Only you mustn’t try it head first as if you were coming out of a tree, but hand after hand, thus.”
And Tom soon disappeared.
I sat there till the shades of evening began to fall. Tom, however, hadn’t quite forgotten me, for he brought me up the breast of a chicken.
After I had partaken of it: “Will you try to come down now, Shireen?” he said.
“No, Tom,” I replied. “I shall end my days up here. I—”
I said no more. For at that moment a rough red face appeared over the top.
It was the honest sailor-man who had brought Tom Brandy on board, and he soon solved the difficulty by taking me down under his arm.