"I have been shanghaied," said Bob, lying down again and covering his face with his hands. "And that Joe Lufkin is at the bottom of it. I am not a sailor, and I don't want to learn to be one. If I get a chance I'll jump overboard and drown myself."
The forecastle was dark, but Bob thought he could easily find his way to the door. Slowly and cautiously he let himself out of the bunk, and then his ears told him that there were three other men fast asleep, and waiting until the whiskey they had taken had died out. Of course, men who were dead drunk couldn't be expected to handle a ship.
"My goodness, I wonder if old Ben Watson is here!" said Bob. "I am going to find out, for I couldn't think of going away and leaving him."
With trembling hands he began feeling in one of the bunks, searching for Ben's whiskers. He was certain that he could recognize them anywhere. The first fellow proved to be a moustached man, but with no whiskers at all on his chin, and as Bob was about to turn away to begin an examination of the occupant of the next bunk there came a warning from the man he had just left. A sinewy arm shot out and a fist shot close by his head; but Bob was just out of reach.
"Shay!" exclaimed the proprietor of that fist, in maudlin tones, "you just want to keep your hands away from me! Hear me, don't you? I've got money, but you ain't a-going to have it!"
"And it is mighty little you will find about your clothes when you wake up," added Bob, who felt sick at heart. "Somebody has been through you before this time. I declare, here's Ben. Wake up and speak to me, Ben!"
But Ben was past speaking to anybody just then, and Bob leaned against the bunk which contained his companion and for a moment gave himself up to despair. He could not think of saving himself while Ben was in danger. And the worst of it was, there was Joe Lufkin, a man whom nobody had ever suspected of treachery, to blame for it all.
"What will the folks at home say to him if they find it out?" said Bob, fairly shuddering when the thought came into his mind. "He'll have to go to State's prison, sure, or else run away and hide himself. And what will Hank do? But I mustn't let this weakness get the start of me. It will kill me. I must go to work."
Bob had scarcely come to this conclusion when a key grated harshly in the lock—that showed Bob that he could not have got out if he tried it—and a hoarse voice shouted:
"Jones, show yourself on deck."