“I doubt very much whether we shall be able to tow her without the risk of tearing out her bows,” said Lord Reginald, “it will be safer to hoist her up, though to do so we must first unship her outriggers. Her builder is on board, and as soon as he has completed his task I should wish to introduce him to you, as he is a young man of talent to whom I am most deeply indebted.”
“I shall be happy to make his acquaintance,” answered the captain, not dreaming of whom Lord Reginald spoke.
The carpenter, with three or four hands, under Dick’s superintendence, quickly unshipped the outriggers, and all wondered, when they saw how narrow and frail she looked, that she should have come without accident so great a distance.
As she touched the deck out jumped Neptune, leaping and barking with delight at seeing his old shipmates, who patted his head and stroked him as he rushed in and out among them. The boat being hoisted in, and the mainyard being braced round, the frigate was steered as close as the wind would allow in the direction taken by the pirate fleet.
Dick, who had not as yet been recognised by any of his old shipmates, busied himself in stowing away the Janet’s masts and sails, until Lord Reginald, coming along the deck, took him by the arm and led him aft to the captain.
“Now let me introduce my friend, Mr Richard Hargrave. I can especially recommend him to you, sir, as a young man of sterling worth, possessed of talents of no ordinary kind, and he has twice saved my life.”
The captain, to Dick’s great surprise, shook him cordially by the hand. “I shall be happy, Lord Reginald, to do my best to serve him,” he said, not recognising Dick as one of his crew.
“The greatest favour you can do me would be to place him on the quarter-deck, and I can answer for it that he will prove an ornament to the service,” answered Lord Reginald.
Perhaps no one was more astonished than was Mr Curling, who remembered Dick, though the others did not, and also the ill feeling shown towards him by Lord Reginald, but he kept his counsel, waiting to hear the captain’s reply.
“He is rather old to enter the service, but as I am glad to do anything you wish, and to reward him for saving your life, I cannot refuse your request,” answered the captain; “and as we have several vacancies which I can fill up, I will appoint Mr Hargrave as one of the midshipmen of this ship.”