As we hesitated, flourishing the rope, he laid it across our shoulders, at which the men standing by laughed and jeered at us. To remonstrate was useless, so to avoid a repetition of the unpleasant infliction, we sprang into the rigging and began to mount, taking care to hold tight as we went up until we got into the top, where we both stood looking down, not liking to go higher.
“Aloft with you, aloft, or I’ll send a couple of hands to start you,” shouted the boatswain from the deck.
We looked up at the tall mast swaying to and fro, and I fully expected, should I make the attempt, to fall down on deck, or to be plunged into the sea, for which I had no wish; but looking down for a moment, and seeing two men about to come up the rigging, I told Lancelot that I would run the chance.
“It is the only thing we can do,” he answered.
Catching hold of the topmast shrouds, we began to mount. We got up at length, and crawled out on the yard, holding on tightly by the ropes which seemed most secure. Finding that it was not so terrible as I had supposed, I crawled out to the very end of the yard, where I clung on, in spite of the fearful way in which it moved about.
Thankful I was, however, to hear the boatswain shout, “You may come down now, lads;” and I made my way into the top.
Lancelot had gone out at the other end of the yard, and when we met on deck he could not help shaking hands, as if we had arrived successfully from some desperate enterprise. The seamen laughed as they saw us, and even the boatswain’s grim features wrinkled into a smile.
“You’ll do, lads,” he said. “You’ll make prime topmen in a few weeks, and thank me for having taught you.”
Such was the commencement of our sea life. Things, we agreed, might have been worse, though we got many a kick and rope’s ending, not only from the boatswain, but from others among the more brutal of the crew.
Martin, when on deck, always came to our rescue, but old as he was, he was but ill able to contend with so many opposed to him.