“Yes, sir! Very good, sir!” replied Bob, touching his cap ceremoniously.
Nelson went below, and as his feet touched the engine room floor he heard a shuffling sound in the stateroom beyond. With a bound, he was at the door. There was no one in sight. Evidently his ears had deceived him; probably he had heard some one moving on deck. Then, as he turned to go back to the engine, he saw that he had not been mistaken after all. Huddled in the corner of Tom’s berth lay a boy, whose anxious face gleamed pale in the dim light and whose wide, eager eyes stared pleadingly up at him.
CHAPTER VIII—TELLS HOW THEY OUTWITTED THE CAPTAIN OF THE HENRY NELLIS
“What are you doing here?” demanded Nelson sternly.
His first thought was that the boy had sneaked into the cabin during their absence, bent on theft, and that on hearing their return he had attempted to hide. But the other’s first words disillusioned him.
“Don’t you tell him! Don’t you, please, sir!” begged the boy in hoarse whispers. “I ain’t done any harm here, honest! And if he gets me, I’ll have to go back on the boat, sir, and she’s going away up to Newfoundland, and—and—I just can’t stand it any longer, I can’t!”
“Oh,” muttered Nelson, “I see! You’re—that boy of his.”
“I ain’t his boy, not really!” cried the other eagerly. “He told my mother he’d take me one voyage and make a sailor of me. And I wanted to go; I didn’t know what it was like. And I went up to Casco with him, and when we got here I wanted to go home, and he said I couldn’t because I’d signed on with him for a year. I never signed anything, sir; he was just lying! And we been here more’n a week, and he kept watchin’ me all the time. And to-day I saw your yacht, sir, and I thought maybe he wouldn’t miss me till you’d gone out again, and so I sneaked down here a little while ago. And I ain’t touched a thing; honest, sir, I ain’t! If you’ll just let me stay here till the Henry sails, sir, I’ll get out right away, I will. You ain’t going to tell him, are you, sir?”
“You stay here,” answered Nelson quietly, “and keep still. I’ll see what the other fellows say.”
“Don’t you, please!” whispered the boy, half sobbing. “If he catches me now he’ll whip me awful! Just let me stay a little while, sir, won’t you? I’ll do anything you say——”