Part 11 (1/2)

”Ah, would you, now!” he exclaimed in reply, as I tried to wrench myself free. ”Don't cry, my little pet, you haven't got your mammy here to mollycoddle you!”

”Let me go, Larkyns, you're choking me,” I gasped out, wriggling violently and kicking out behind. ”I'll hurt you if you don't loose me; I will, indeed!”

He wouldn't release me yet, however, seeing I was out of temper; and, some of the other middies not on duty gathering round, it being their watch below, egged Larkyns on, suggesting that as I seemed to think myself such a ”big gun,” I ought to be sponged and loaded and run out.

This humorous advice was immediately acted upon, a couple of the gang laying hold of my legs in spite of my kicks, while another a.s.sisted Larkyns, my tormenter; and the mischievous lot swung me backwards and forwards in and out of the port, until nearly all my clothes were pulled off my back and I hadn't a sound b.u.t.ton left to my jacket.

I felt hot all over; and was in a fine rage, ”I tell you,” as the gunner used to say.

Mr Triggs, meanwhile, had gone up the hatchway to see about getting on board his ammunition, the vermilion-painted powder hoys I had observed in the distance at the mouth of the harbour being now nearly alongside the s.h.i.+p; and, all of a sudden, as my reckless s.h.i.+pmates were pulling me almost to pieces between them in their mad prank, there came a cry from the deck above, ”Stand clear, below there!”

At the same instant, a coil of rope whizzed by the port-hole out of which my body projected, the bight of it narrowly escaping my head in its downward descent, wetting my face with the spray it threw up as it splashed into the water right under me.

I could not restrain a shriek of alarm; and, wriggling more violently than before in the hands of those holding me as I tried to release myself, I managed somehow or other to jerk away from their grasp, sending them all sprawling backward on the deck inboard, while I shot out of the port like a catapult, tumbling headlong into the sea as if taking a header after the rope!

CHAPTER NINE.

MY DIP GAINS ME A DINNER.

Fortunately, though, as I fell, my outstretched hands, clutching wildly in the air, came in contact with the identical rope whose sudden descent from the gangway above had been the unwitting cause of the disaster, the tail end of the ”whip” Mr Triggs had ordered to be rigged up from the lee yardarm, in readiness to hoist in the powder when the hoy bringing the same was made fast alongside.

This naturally yielded to my weight as I clung to it, on account of the other end, which pa.s.sed through a block fastened to the yard, not being secured.

However, it let me down easy into the water, my unexpected immersion making no noise to speak of and hardly causing a ripple on the surface of the tide as it gurgled past the s.h.i.+p's counter and eddied away in ripples under her stem.

Not a soul on board, indeed, knew of my mishap save those merry messmates of mine, all of whom doubtless, I thought, as soon as I regained my composure after the fright and knew that I was comparatively safe, would be in a great funk, fearing the worst had happened.

Glancing upward, my head being just clear of the water, which I trod to keep myself in an erect position, holding on, though, all the while, ”like grim death,” to the rope, of which I had taken a turn round my wrist, I saw Larkyns, the ringleader of the frolic, leaning out over the port sill as pale as a ghost.

He was looking downwards, in every direction but the right one, seeking vainly to discover me; and he evidently dreaded that I was drowned, his face being the picture of misery and despair.

”Hist, old chap, don't call out,” I whispered in a low voice, as he was about to give up the search and rouse the s.h.i.+p. ”I'm all right, my boy.”

”My goodness Vernon, is that you? I thought you were lost, old chap,”

he hailed back in the same key, the expression of his face changing instantly to one of heartfelt relief. ”Thank G.o.d you're not drowned!

But, where are you, old fellow; I can't see you?”

”Right under your very nose, you blind old mole! I am bent on to a bight of the whip falls,” I answered, with a chuckle. ”Keep the other end of the rope taut, old chap, and I'll be able to climb up back into the port without anybody being the wiser but ourselves, my hearty, and so we'll all escape going into the report.”

He grasped the situation in an instant; and, likewise, saw the advisability of keeping the matter quiet now that I was not in any imminent peril.

Master Larkyns knew as well as myself that if the tragic result of their skylarking should get wind and reach the ears of Captain Farmer, he and his brother mids would have a rough time of it, and probably all be had up on the quarter-deck.

”All serene, Vernon, I under-constubble,” he softly whispered back to me, in our gunroom slang. ”Do you think you can manage to climb up by yourself, or shall I come down and help you?”

”Fiddlesticks, you duffer! I can get up right enough on _my own_ cheek,” I said with a t.i.tter, though my mouth was full of the brackish water into which I had plunged at first head and ears over, while my teeth were chattering with cold, the frosty November air being chilly.

”I shall fancy I'm climbing the greasy pole at a regatta and that you're the pig on the top, old fellow. How's that, umpire, for your 'Squaretoes,' eh?”