and stunned, and when we came to ourselves it was because the storm had
passed over.

"What cheer, ho!" shouted the captain, and we poor flogged and drenched
objects sat up and looked about us, to find that the waves had lifted
the schooner off the rocks, and driven her a long way out of her course;
that the sails that had been set were blown to ribbons; and finally that
the schooner, with the last exception, was very little the worse for the
adventure.

"She ain't made no water much," said the captain, after going below;
"and--here, I say, where's that Malay scoundrel?"

"Down in the cabin--locked in," said an ill-used voice; and I rubbed the
salt-water out of my eyes, and stared at the tall thin figure before me,
leaning up against the bulwark as if his long thin legs were too weak to
support his long body, though his head was so small that it could not
have added very much weight.

"Why, hallo! Who the blue jingo are you?" roared the skipper.

The tall thin boy wrinkled up his forehead, and did not answer.

"Here, I say, where did you spring from?" roared the captain.

The tall thin boy took one hand out of his trousers' pocket with some
difficulty, for it was so wet that it clung, and pointed down below.

The skipper scratched his head furiously, and stared again.

"Here, can't you speak, you long-legged thing?" he cried. "Who are
you?"

"Why, it's Jack Penny!" I exclaimed.

"Jack who?" cried the captain.

"Jack Penny, sir. His father is a squatter about ten miles from our
place."

"Well, but how came _he_--I mean that tall thin chap, not his father--to
be squatting aboard my schooner?"

"Why, Jack," I said, "when did you come aboard?"

"Come aboard?" he said slowly, as if it took him some time to understand
what I said. "Oh, the night before you did."

"But where have you been all the time?"

"Oh, down below there," said Jack slowly.

"But what did you come for?"

"Wanted to," he said coolly. "If I had said so, they wouldn't--you
wouldn't have let me come."

"But why did you come, Jack?" I said.

"'Cause I wanted," he replied surlily. "Who are you that you're to have
all the fun and me get none!"

"Fun!" I said.

"Yes, fun. Ain't you goin' to find your father?"

"Of course I am; but what's that got to do with fun?"

"Never you mind; I've come, and that's all about it," he said slowly;
and thrusting his hands back into his trousers' pockets as fast as the
wet clinging stu