Page:Morley roberts--Blue Peter--sea yarns.djvu/187

Rh it, and the crowd, with a grin on all their weather-beaten and hairy countenances, waited to hear Mr. Smith's answering yell.

"Who the devil do you think you are?" he asked.

"I'm the mate of this ship," said Ruddle, "but, but I don't think I ever saw any of you before?" "How do you come to be togged up like you are, if you are mate?" asked Smith, as he made the bunt gasket fast. "Don't you think you look a hell of a sailor in that rig?"

"I don't understand it," said Ruddle blankly. "Where did I get these clothes?"

"You'd better ask the 'old man,'" said the second mate. "You're a clergyman, and you ain't a sailor at all."

"You're a liar," said Ruddle. "But I don't understand it. I don't know any of you. Where are we?"

"Off the Cape, to be sure," said Smith.

Ruddle shook his head.

"There is something very horrid about this," he said, with an awe-stricken expression of countenance, "for when we clewed up this topsail we were off the Head of Kinsale."