“At any rate, I’ve done my duty,” he thought.
He went to the door. He wanted to look down into the black fog-filled pit overside once more and see what was going on. Glancing cautiously over, he almost gave a gasp of delight.
A second boat was at work!
“My gracious, if they get here in time they’ll make a fine haul of doubtful fish!” he said to himself in a low voice.
The words were hardly out of his mouth when he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder. He was spun round like a top and found himself in the clasp of a giant fireman. The hairy-chested fellow was naked from the waist up, and his coal-smeared face and blood-shot eyes did not add to the beauty of his appearance.
Suddenly the man’s grip transferred itself to Jack’s neck. The fingers, hard as iron, closed on his windpipe. He felt his breath shut off and his eyes starting out of his head. The man threw him roughly to the deck, and as he did so Jack recognized in him the sailor who had hung back when the boat was to be launched to the rescue of the derelict, and whose place he had taken. The fellow had been transferred to the fire-room force as a punishment.
The boy could feel the giant’s hot breath fanning his face as the man knelt over him, one knee crushingly on his chest.
“So, my young gamecock, you bane play the spy, hey?” he snarled. “You bane forgat everything you seen, or overboard you go with your figurehead stove in!”