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 CHAPTER XXVI

"YO-HEAVE-YO!"

It was pitch dark in the cabin, but although under a cloudy sky there was light enough to discern objects on deck or alongside. As Smoke-Jack observed, stealing aft with bare feet, and in a louder whisper than was prudent, "A good pair of eyes might see as far as a man could heave a bull by the tail." George had determined to give the crew a lesson, once for all, in the matter of discipline, and felt well pleased to make example of the new-comers, who must be supposed as yet ignorant of his system.

So he sat in the dark, pistol in hand, at the stern window, which was open, and watched like the hunter for his prey.

He heard the three Jacks creeping along the deck overhead, he heard low whispers and a smothered laugh, followed by a few brief expostulations as to priority of disembarkation, the language far less polite than the intention; lastly, he heard the tackle by which his boat was made fast running gently over its blocks.

Then he cocked his pistol without noise, and laughed to himself.

Gradually the cabin window was obscured. A dark object passed smoothly down, and revealed in its progress a human figure indistinctly visible above its black horizontal mass, which was indeed the slow-descending boat, containing no less a personage than the adventurous Slap-Jack; also two lines of tackle were dimly visible supporting that boat's head. A turn of the body, as he covered them steadily with his pistol, enabled the Captain to bring these two lines into one.