Wilson, putting on his sea-boots once more, spat contemptuously over the side.
“Measly rat! He’d have let us drift past without raising a finger to bear a hand. Maybe he’s scared stiff—thinks we’re ghosts doing a little round o’ visits at Christmas! Suppose I nip on board and see what’s doing, sir?”
“Carry on, then,” agreed the midshipman. “Mind you don’t get a crack over the head from a scared-stiff ship-keeper.”
“Trust me to look after myself, sir,” rejoined Wilson confidently.
The other craft turned out to be a schooner with old-fashioned chain plates and projecting platforms fitted with dead eyes to which the shrouds were secured. Her bulwarks were from six to ten feet above the picket-boat’s deck—according to the relative roll of both craft—but the chain plate was well within the coxswain’s reach.
Waiting his opportunity, Wilson gripped the lanyards of one pair of dead-eyes and swung himself up. His feet slithered upon the accumulation of frozen snow that had lodged upon the chain plate, but his grasp was a powerful one.
Recovering his foothold he scrambled over the bulwarks and disappeared from the midshipman’s sight.
In a few seconds he reappeared.
“Chuck me up the spare painter, Nobbie!” he hailed, addressing the bowman. “There ain’t no one on deck, so I’ll take the liberty of making all fast myself!”
As soon as the second painter was secured the coxswain picked up a coil of rope that was lying on the schooner’s deck and dropped one end into the picket-boat’s stern-sheets.