He had heard the same sounds and felt the same motion recently, but he could not recollect when. Presently a door slid open, and a flood of sunshine came in, with a black face in the midst of it.
‘Ahi,’ said a voice, as Peter blinked at its owner. ‘You ’wake now, eh? Copper hot, I ’spect? Have drink?’ and the speaker handed up a hook-pot full of water.
Peter drank copiously, and made shift to get out.
‘Where the blazes am I?’ he exclaimed, weak and trembling all over, as his feet touched the deck.
‘Barque John F. Harkins, o’ Boston, State o’ Maine. I’m de doctor. Guess you’ve been shanghaied. Best come out afore de greaser gets mad.’
This was Greek to poor Peter. But, stumbling over the door-sill, he gazed about him with a wildly-amazed look, which made the negro cook grin more widely than ever.
All around was blue water, blue water from where it touched the sky-line to where, close to him, it rushed [26] ]swiftly past, curling, white-tipped. Above his head acres of snowy canvas bellied in graceful curves aloft into a blue sky; everywhere a maze of ropes and gear, crossed and re-crossed like the threads of a spider’s web.
Peter gasped. He was astonished and dismayed too deeply for words; and at the expression of his face the darkey laughed outright.
The ship giving a sudden lurch, he staggered, slipped over to leeward, and clutched a belaying pin. Then he heard a bell strike somewhere. Then men came out of a hole in the deck near by, and one, staring hard, exclaimed,—
‘Why, damn my rags, if this ain’t the Jolly Bushman come to sea!’