“If you ask me,” said the mate, “I should say you couldn’t please the crew better.”
“Well, we’ll see,” said the other, nodding sagely; “don’t make no noise, Jack.”
He set an example of silence himself, and aided by the mate, cast off the warps which held his unconscious visitors to their native town, and the wind being off the shore, the little schooner drifted silently away from the quay. The skipper went to the wheel, and the noise of the mate hauling on the jib brought a rough head out of the fo’c’s’le, the owner of which, after a cry to his mates below, sprang up on deck and looked round in bewilderment.
“Stand by, there!” cried the skipper as the others came rushing on deck, “Shake ’em out.”
“Beggin’ your pardin’, sir,” said one of them with more politeness in his tones than he had ever used before, “but———”
“Stand by!” said the skipper.
“Now then!” shouted the mate sharply, “lively there! Lively with it!”
The men looked at each other helplessly and went to their posts as a scream of dismay arose from the fair beings below who, having just begun to realise their position, were coming on deck to try and improve it.
“What!” roared the skipper in pretended astonishment, “what! gells aboard after all I said, It can’t be; I must be dreaming!”
“Take us back!” wailed the damsels, ignoring the sarcasm, “take us back, captain.”