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rtfelt relief. "Thank God 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 titter, 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?" "Ah, pax! You're a trump, Jack Vernon, and I promise never to call you by that name any more as it annoys you," he replied, chuckling at my joke, though it was at his own expense. He then leant out of the port further so as to get a tight grip of the whip fall, the other fellows holding on to him in turn to prevent his toppling over and joining me below, singing out as soon as their preparations were completed, calling out to me, "Are you ready?" "Ready?" I repeated, quoting my favourite Napierian motto again. "Ay ready!" "Then, up you come, my joker! Put your feet in the bight and hold on to the slack of the rope above your head and we'll hoist you up in regular man-of-war fashion. Now, my lads, pull baker, pull devil!" He spoke under his breath; and yet, I heard every word he said, not only to me, but to the others inboard, grouped behind him within the port. Quick as lightning I followed out his directions, clinging to the lower end of the rope like an eel; and, as soon as I gave the word,
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