ssing a restless night.

"Get up fellows," called Tom at length. "Here's a pretty sight. A
schooner--I think she's a three master--is leaving town. See the
fountain of sparks from the tug's smokestack. What a sight it is to see
those sails going up. I wonder where she's headed for."

"Look at the man away up there in the top," cried Jack.

"And there goes another up the main rigging," put in Tom. "The sails go
up slowly somehow. I guess she's short handed."

"Maybe she's like many another vessel that my father has told me about,"
offered Frank. "He has often told me of ships that left port with only
two or three sober hands besides the captain and officers. When they
were once outside the harbor and had been dropped by the tug, the mate
would go to forecastle and rouse out the hands. If they were drunk, he'd
beat them until they were sober."

"What a terrible thing," cried Jack in horrified tones.

"And then he sometimes has told me of fellows who were shanghaied aboard
vessels against their will and kept below until so far away that
swimming back would have been suicide."

"Why didn't they complain when they once got ashore?" asked Tom. "I
should go right to the American Consul at the port."

"Well, maybe they felt that if they did they would have had fair
treatment and maybe not. You know a captain of a vessel is king on board
his boat when they are at sea. He might log a man for mutiny and the
chap would be glad to run away from the vessel when he landed.

"It must be a tough life on those deep sea craft in spite of all the
fine stories we read. I don't want to go to sea."

"Right you are, Tom," cried Jack. "But look at the chap, he's headed
right in for us. I do believe he'll be on us in a minute."

"Sound the Klaxon a little," said Frank. "Maybe he'll sheer off. Why not
switch on the lights? He might see them."

Quickly this suggestion was followed. Not a moment too soon it seemed,
for the tug crew had evidently been watching the vessel they were towing
and had not noticed the Fortuna. A whirl of the spokes by the pilot
brought the tug on a course away from the motor boat, but the schooner
had headway enough so that she came right on. By the narrowest margin
she cleared the Fortuna.

The boys breathed easier as she slipped past them, her bulk looming
large beside the vessel they occupied.

"What was that?" asked Jack, holding up a hand for silence.

"I didn't hear anything," declared Tom. "What do