Eagan attempted to find the plug-hole. He rose with his hands dripping bilge muck. The man at the oars dug the blades deep into the bay, bent his back, and dug again as if his life were at stake.
Stirling climbed into the bow of the boat, stared through the fog, and heard a ship's bell striking. He motioned for the oarsman to row in that direction, and the light craft steadied upon the dark mass.
Reaching upward, the Ice Pilot warded off the boat and grasped a dangling line that ran over a ship's rail at the waist. He nudged Eagan and went hand-over-hand upward until one palm hooked the rail, then he turned his head and looked at the boat.
The piano-player, the waiter, and the woman—all three very much alive—were standing on the thwarts. Eagan and the other seamen had found lines up which they were climbing.
Stirling saw the woman draw a bent knife from her breast, toss it overboard, and wring the water from her skirts.
He heard her mocking song as the Whitehall boat merged in the fog, and finally was gone back toward Meigg's Wharf and the Blubber Room:
"It's 'rah for th' grog—
Th' jolly, jolly grog!
It's 'rah for th' grog an' tobacco!
For you've spent all your tin with th' ladies, drinkin' gin,
An' across th' brimy ocean you must wan—der——"
[CHAPTER II—ON A MAN'S SEA]
Breathing the invigorating night air, Horace Stirling climbed over the ship's rail, squared his shoulders, and started toward the poop steps. The consciousness that he had been shanghaied came to him; the sensation was a novel one.
He reached the weather steps. There he paused and swung, facing the after part of the ship. A group of seamen were gathered in the waist. They were receiving the shanghaied sailors who had been brought out in the Whitehall boat.