Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/223

 the other side, he walked over and looked into it. Yes, his eyes were black.

"The ship I deserted from was the White Squall," said Roy; whereupon the lightship men nodded, as much as to say that the whole matter had been made clear to them. "I didn't belong to her. I was—what do you call it?—shanghaied? Yes; that was what was done to me, and also to the two men who started to row me from Shelly's Island to New London. One of the sailors told me I had better get off if I could see half a chance, and that was the way I came to be in the water. One of the mates knocked me down twice while I was working at the painter of our boat, and pounded me with a piece of rope till—well, look at that," added Roy, who, when he came to pull off his wet shirt, found that he could not do it without assistance. His arm pained him, and he could not use it as readily as usual. This led him to make an examination, and he found that the arm was bruised and discolored from shoulder to elbow.

"Yas," remarked one of the men, as if he