"Avast, there!" cried a voice from the hold. "Ain't you Christians enough to give a white man a chance for life and liberty?"
The sailors stood and looked at one another without speaking.
[CHAPTER XIV.]
OLD TIMES REVIVED.
"I SAY! on deck, there!" continued the voice. "Don't throw any more of them things at me, and I'll come up!"
These words aroused the crew. They made a rush for the fore-hatch, and when they reached it found the owner of the head crouching among the oil barrels. Frank looked at him in astonishment, and could scarcely believe that he was a white man. His only clothing was a pair of tattered trowsers, and those portions of his person which were unprotected were as brown as sole-leather, made so, no doubt, by long exposure to the sun and weather. Moreover, his body was profusely tattooed, so that at the distance Frank stood from him, he looked as though he had on a tight-fitting under-shirt of some dark-colored material, with light blue slashings.
"Who are you, and where did you come from?" demanded the mate.
"I'm Chips," replied the man. "I used to be carpenter of the whale-ship Mary Starbuck, that was wrecked here long ago. It was so long ago," he added, putting his hand to his forehead in a bewildered sort of way, "that I have almost forgot how it happened."