hich I greedily drank.

"By the feel of his ribs he wants something more substantial than
water," observed my friend. "We must get the poor young chap into a
berth, and feed him up, or he'll be slipping his cable. There doesn't
seem to be much life in him now."

"That will be seen."

"What business had he to stow himself away, and make us all fancy that a
ghost was haunting the ship?" cried Growles, in a surly way. "We shall
hear what the captain has to say to him. To my notion, as he's made his
bed, so he'll have to lie on it."

"Come, come, mate, it would be hard lines for the poor young chap if he
were left to die, without any of us trying to bring him through. I, for
one, can't stand by doing nothing, so just one of you lend a hand here,
and we'll put him into my berth, and get the cook to make some broth for
him," said the kind-hearted seaman.

While he was speaking, a person, who was evidently one of the officers,
came forward and expressed his surprise at seeing me, and inquired why
he hadn't been informed of my having been discovered?

The men replied, that I had only just been found and brought on deck,
and that they thought I was dying.

"It would have saved trouble to have hove him overboard before he came
to himself," said the mate, with a careless laugh. "The captain doesn't
allow of stowaways, and we don't want any aboard here."

He said this, I suppose, to frighten me, indifferent to the
consequences.

"He's very bad, sir," said my friend, touching his hat, "and, maybe, it
won't much matter what is done with him; but if you'll give me leave,
I'll take him below to my berth, after we've washed off the dirt that
sticks to him. He wants food more than anything else to bring him
round, and when he's himself we can make some use of him at all events.
We want a boy forward very badly, and he'll be worth his salt, I've a
notion."

"You may do what you like with him, Tom Trivett," answered the officer,
"only don't let us be bothered with him. We've trouble enough with
young Riddle, the mutinous young rascal. He'll have to look out for
himself, if he don't mind."

The officer was the third mate of the ship, who happened just then to
have charge of the deck. He made further inquiries about how I had been
found, and asked the men whether they had before known of my being on
board?

Trivett replied that they were entirely ignorant as to how I had come
into the ship, but that hearing peculiar