Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/212

 turn about for fear our boat would be capsized. It isn't likely that they would have come aboard this ship if they had known that they were going to be kidnapped, would they?"

"Aha!" exclaimed the sailor. "So they have been shanghaied too, have they? Then I can't understand the matter at all. No, they wouldn't have come here if they had known that, for I have heard that the cap'n is one of the worst brutes that any poor chap ever sailed under."

"Then why do you sail with him? Were you shanghaied, too?"

"Oh no; I was shipped all straight enough, but, bless you, I never knew what sort of a craft I was getting onto till it was too late to back out. But I never expect to reach Canton alive."

"Canton?" cried Roy. "Is that where this ship is bound?"

"It's the port the old man intends to bring up in if he can keep afloat that long. Being as I'm here, I'm going to do an able seaman's duty as long as I am on top of water. You