A wild hurrah of triumph burst from the crew; and the second-mate was just about descending into the forepeak, to get nearer the fire and see whether it had been thoroughly put out, when the entire cover of the hatchway was suddenly thrown violently off, and the dripping head and shoulders of a man appearing right under his very nose startled Jan Steenbock so much that he tumbled backward on the deck, although, impassive as usual, he did not utter a cry.
The captain did though.
“By the jumping Jehosophat!” he yelled out, also hopping back precipitately, with his night-shirt streaming out in the wind, which must have made his legs feel rather chilly, I thought, “who in thunder’s thaar?”
“Me,” replied a husky voice, the owner whereof coughed, as if he were pretty well suffocated with the smoke and water. “It’s all right; it’s only me.”
“Jee-rusalem!” ejaculated Captain Snaggs, rather puzzled. “Who’s ‘me’ I’d like ter know, I guess?”
“Tom Bullover,” answered my friend the carpenter, now lifting himself out of the forepeak, when shaking himself like a big Newfoundland dog, he scattered a regular shower bath around. “It’s all right below, and there’s no fire there no longer.”
“An’ what in the name of thunder wer ye a-doin’ on down thaar, hey?” asked the skipper, quite flabbergasted at his unexpected appearance, Tom looking like a veritable imp from the lower regions, all blackened and begrimed, for the moon escaping from the veil of vapour that now nearly concealed the entire vault of the heavens just then shone down on us again, throwing a sickly light on the scene. “How kern ye to be down in the forepeak at all, my joker?”
“I went down just afore my watch was up to look up a spare old tops’l we stowed away there, me and Hiram, the week afore last, to see whether it wouldn’t do in place o’ that main to’gallant we carried away yesterday,” replied Tom, rather sheepishly; “an’ I s’pose I fell asleep, for it was only the water you kept a-pouring down as woke me up, an’ I was most drownded afore I could reach the ladder an’ catch hold of the coamin’ of the hatch to climb up.”
“An’ sarve ye right, too, if we hed drownded ye, by thunder!” roared Captain Snaggs, thoroughly incensed, “ye durned addle-headed lubber! I guess ye hed a lantern with ye, hey?”
“Yes,” confessed the delinquent; “in course I took a light down to see what I was a-doin’ of.”