ou get a chance," growled the officer to Green; to Willy he
said, "Go on up."

Willy crossed himself, then swung himself without fear up on the rope
ladder leading from the side of the vessel to the crow's nest. Right
after him followed Redfox. With anger and fear Green watched how the
wind blew Willy's blonde hair and the officer's red beard; for a moment
the two disappeared behind the sails, then they appeared scaling the
topmost ladder. The wind had increased; the vessel tipped still more
to the side. Willy clambered on courageously higher and higher up, but
the real danger was yet to come.

"Now see, he is astride the yard sliding out fully twelve feet from the
main mast--now he is loosening the rope by which the top-sail is
fastened to the arm! Redfox ought to do that himself," said the
helmsman to himself. "But no, he forces the boy before him out on the
yard, orders him to stand up and unfasten the rope. The inhuman
wretch!--That means the boy's death. It is no easy task even for an
experienced seaman. And he is not even holding him by the belt, only
by the bottom part of his jacket.----Now he is holding him tighter.
There----O holy Mother of God the boy is falling!" Green closed his
eyes for a moment and gasped. "No, he is sliding along the yard. Hold
fast, Willy, hold fast for two or three minutes. I'll come to help
you."

He threw the rope over the wheel and ran like a cat up the rigging.
Willy, in utmost danger of falling, was sliding and swinging along
between the sails of the fore and mainmast, every moment expecting that
his strength would give out and that he would fall on the planks of the
deck below or into the sea.

"Holy guardian angel," he cried, "take me; I cannot hold on any
longer!" Everything swam before his eyes, and in a moment he would
have fallen, if the helmsman had not, almost miraculously reached him
and seized him in his arms. He carried him down to the deck and laid
him in a dead faint on a pile of rope, and began working over him.
Before Redfox came down from the rigging Willy had recovered. "You
see," he said to Green, "my holy guardian angel did not leave me."

"Indeed, Master Willy, you speak the truth, for without the help of
your guardian angel I should not have been able to save you," affirmed
Green, wiping drops of cold sweat from his forehead. Then he thundered
at Redfox:

"Thank God, that you lay yourself down to rest tonight without a murder
on your co