by W. W. Jacobs
it'll keep his arms fast."
The cook thanked him fervently, and routing out a sack, rushed hastily ondeck, his departure being the signal for Mr. Henshaw and his friends tomake preparations for retiring for the night so hastily as almost tosavour of panic.
The cook, after a hasty glance ashore, went softly below with the sackover his arm and felt his way in the darkness to the skipper's bunk. Thesound of deep and regular breathing reassured him, and without unduehaste he opened the mouth of the sack and gently raised the sleeper'shead.
"Eh? Wha----" began a sleepy voice.
The next moment the cook had bagged him, and gripping him tightly roundthe middle, turned a deaf ear to the smothered cries of his victim as hestrove to lift him out of the bunk. In the exciting time which followed,he had more than one reason for thinking that he had caught a centipede.
"Now, you keep still," he cried, breathlessly. "I'm not going to hurtyou."
He got his burden out of bed at last, and staggered to the foot of thecompanion-ladder with it. Then there was a halt, two legs stickingobstinately across the narrow way and refusing to be moved, while afurious humming proceeded from the other end of the sack.
Four times did the exhausted cook get his shoulder under his burden andtry and push it up the ladder, and four times did it wriggle and fightits way down again. Half crazy with fear and rage, he essayed it for thefifth time, and had got it half-way up when there was a suddenexclamation of surprise from above, and the voice of the mate sharplydemanding an explanation.
"What the blazes are you up to?" he cried.
"It's all right, sir," said the panting cook; "old Jem's had a drop toomuch and got down aft, and I'm getting 'im for'ard again."
"Jem?" said the astonished mate. "Why, he's sitting up here on thefore-hatch. He came aboard with me."
"Sitting," began the horrified cook; "sit--oh, lor!"
He stood with his writhing burden wedged between his body and the ladder,and looked up despairingly at the mate.
"I'm afraid I've made a mistake," he said in a trembling voice.
The mate struck a match and looked down.
"Take that sack off," he demanded, sternly.
The cook placed his burden upon its feet, and running up the ladder stoodby the mate shivering. The latter struck another match, and the twainwatched in breathless silence the writhings of the strange creature belowas the covering worked slowly upwards. In the fourth match it got free,and revealed the empurpled visage of the master of the _Susannah_. Forthe fraction of a second the cook gazed at him in speechless horror, andthen, with a hopeless cry, sprang ashore and ran for it, hotly pursued byhis enraged victim. At the time of sailing he was still absent, and theskipper, loth to part two such friends, sent Mr. James Lister, at theurgent request of the anxious crew, to look for him.