Chapter Two.
A Runaway.
Nellie half sprang from her seat at this unexpected addition to their little party, uttering a scream of terror the while, as genuine as it was shrill and ear-piercing.
She was a slight, delicate-looking girl of twelve, with a shower of curls of the colour of light gold that rippled over her forehead and shoulders and down her back, reaching well-nigh to her waist; and it seemed almost impossible that such a fairy-like little creature could have uttered such a volume of sound.
However, she did it; and then, satisfied apparently with having exerted herself so far for the protection of all, Miss Nellie crouched down in the corner of the carriage behind Bob, who, two years her elder and a stoutly-built boy for his age, with short-cropped hair of a tawnier tinge, stood up sturdily in front of his trembling little sister to defend her, if need be, as manfully as he could.
But, the gallant old Captain was first in the field, jumping forward with an agility of which neither Bob nor Nellie thought him capable; and, in an instant, he had clutched hold of the intruder.
“Who the dickens are you?” he cried, shaking him as a terrier would a rat. “What the dickens do you want here, confound you!”
“Please don’t, ma–aster,” gasped out a half-suffocated voice. “I be a’most shook to pieces!”
“Humph! ‘when taken to be well shaken,’ that’s what doctors advise, eh?” said the Captain, somewhat sternly, although with a sly chuckle at his witty illustration of the phrase, as, with a strong muscular effort, he raised up the struggling figure he had clutched hold of and proceeded to inspect his capture—a lanky woebegone lad, whose rugged garments and general appearance was by no means improved by the rough handling he had received in the grip of the old sailor, who, as he now put him on his feet and released him, repeated his original imperative inquiry, “Who the dickens are you and what do you want here?”