"Is it all right, capt'n?" asked Tom, lowering his hands with a deep sigh of relief. "I did what seemed right, you know."
"Rig that whip," said Swarth, turning his back and ascending the poop.
Tom secured the gear, and climbing aloft and out the gaff, fastened the block directly over the lazarette-hatch, just forward of the binnacle. Then he overhauled the rope until it reached the deck, and descended.
"Come up here on the poop," called the captain; and he came.
"Shall I go down and hook on, sir?" he asked zealously.
"Make a hangman's noose in the end of the rope," said Swarth.
"Eh—what—a runnin' bowline—a timber-hitch? No, no," he yelled, as he read the captain's face. "You can't do it. The men——"
"Make a hangman's knot in the end of the rope," thundered the captain, his pistol at Tom's ear.
With a face like that of a death's-head he tied the knot.
"Pass it round your neck and draw it tight."