"I think the lad is sick, sir," said Duff, who happened to be near. "See—by heavens!—he has fainted."
"The kid is shamming," growled the first mate, whose watch it now was. "A dose of the paddle would bring him to, I'll warrant."
"I think you are right, Rucker," said Gary without paying any heed to the second mate. "Lay for'ard there two of you and lash him to the topmast shrouds. He shall have his hour up there, dead or alive, then we'll settle his shamming."
Two sailors, seizing some loose line, ran up the foremast to where Ralph had sunk back in a swoon, overcome by the combined effects of illness and the terrors of his position.
Lifting him to his feet, they bound him to the topmast ratlines so that his feet rested on the little platform. As they came down one said to the other:
"He ain't shamming. The lad is sick enough for a doctor, that's what 'e is, mate."
"Shet up," quoth his companion. "Let the captain hear you and he'll put you on bread and water for three days, if no worse comes. Every tub stands on its own bottom in this craft."
Meanwhile Neb had served breakfast in the cabin. Gary and Rucker went down, Duff taking the first mate's place.
This was the second mate's first voyage with Captain Gary, and he furtively sympathized with Ralph, but such is the force of discipline on shipboard that he dared not show his feelings openly.
"It's a burning shame," thought he, "to punish a land lubber of a boy the first day he ever spent at sea. Sugar wouldn't melt in Gary's mouth when I went to him for a job, but now the tune is changed. And to cap all, nobody seems to know where we're bound, unless it may be Rucker. The crew know nothing, except that we're provisioned for a long voyage, with a lot of stuff locked up in the hold as no one has seen yet."