“But they claimed her.”
“Sure, so’s no other ship wouldn’t come fer ’er. They was sharp ones, them officers!”
“And worse than I thought,” said Johnny.
“Worse, did you say? They’re a ’ard lot. Know what they done to me? Shanghaied me, they did. ’Ere I is in the ’arbor with no money and no place to sleep, and they says to me, ‘Sleep in the ship. We can’t sail fer four days,’ an’ that night, up they ’eaves anchor and out to sea they blows, an’ me a-sleepin’ sound. That’s ’ow they ships me. An’ no agreement to pay ’er nothin’. Say,” he whispered, “if they’s a show-down, or anything, between you and them, you count me in on your side. But don’t you fight them if you can ’elp it, fer, as I say, they’s a ’ard lot.”
Johnny thanked him, then lay for a time listening to the low murmur of voices. At last he fell into a half-sleep from which he awakened to find that day was breaking.
He scrambled down from the rocks to the beach. There he met a short, broad-shouldered man with beady rat-like eyes.
“I’m Captain Hicks,” said the stranger. “That your seaplane?”
“Yes,” Johnny answered, trying to smile.
“Fine plane. Luck, I call it. Our purser is a licensed pilot. Soon’s weather clears, I’ll have him take me over to another island in that plane.”
Johnny gasped. He was about to protest. Then the hopelessness of the situation came to him.