—­“wish I had something to scoff, I’m starvin’,” groaned Nippers, “but we’ll hafta lay low till the bloody tub pulls out or we’ll get caught an’ dumped ashore.”

Supper done with, the men were sitting about and smoking.  They were soon, however, summoned up on deck, by a voice that roared down to them, from above, filling their quarters with a gust of sound.

We were alone now, perhaps,—­it was so still.

With an almost imperceptible slowness, Nippers thrust his head out, as cautiously as a turtle ... he emerged further.

He made a quick thrust of the arm for a platter of beef and potatoes, that stood, untouched, on the table ... someone coughed.  We had thought we were alone.  Nippers jerked back.  The tin came down with a clatter, first to the bench, then to the floor.  A big friendly potato rolled under to where we were.  We seized on it, divided it, ate it.

Contrary to our conjecture, some of the men must have stayed below.  Someone jumped out of a bunk.

“There’s rats down here!”

“—­mighty big rats, if you arsks me.”

“It’s not rats,” and I could hear a fear in the voice that quavered the words forth, “I tell you, buddy, this ship is haunted.”

“—­haunted!” boomed the voice of a man coming down the ladder, “you stop this silly nonsense right now ... don’t spread such talk as that ... it’s stowaways!”

We saw a pair of legs to the knees again.  We lay still, breathless.  A watch chain dangled down in a parabolic loop.  Then followed a round face, beef-red with stooping.  It looked under apoplectically at us.

“Ah, me b’yes, c’m on out o’ there!”

And out we came, dragged by the foot, one after the other, as I myself in my childhood have pulled frogs out from a hole in a brook-bank.

“I’ve been hearing them for hours, Mister,” spoke up the little, shrivelled, leathery-skinned West Indian negro, who spoke English without a trace of dialect, “and I was sure the place was haunted.”

* * * * *

We stood before the captain, cap deferentially in hand.

But he looked like anything but a man in charge of a ship.  He was short.  In outward appearance, moreover, he was like a wax doll.  He had waxen-white cheeks with daubs of pink as if they had been put there from a rouge pot.  His hair was nicely scented, oiled, and patted down.  His small hands were white and perfectly manicured.

Nippers began to snicker openly at him.  But the sharp variety and incisiveness of the oaths he vented at us, soon disabused us of any opinion we might have held that he was sissified....

“What’s wrong with you, you young ——­ ——­ ——­ ——­ you?” began the captain.  The snicker died slowly from Nipper’s lips, and in his face dawned an infinite, surprised respect....

Then, after he had subdued us: 

“So you’re stowaways, eh?... and you think you’re going to be given a free ride to Brisbane and let go ashore, scot free?... not much!  You’ll either go to jail there or sign up here, as cattlemen for the trip to China—­even though I can see that your mouths are still wet from your mothers’ tits!” And he ended with a blasphemous flourish.