” cried a gruff voice.

“Hello, you!” shouted Dick. “Here I am.”

[91]

“Well, what do you want?” asked the captain of the fishing boat, peering out into the darkness and 杭州spa水疗 trying to discover whence the hail came.

“Is civilized folks human enough to lend a sufferin’ feller-man a helpin’ hand?” asked Dick, who after his recent experience had some serious doubts on this point.

This question was not immediately answered, for the skipper did not quite understand it. He held a consultation with one of his men and then called out—

“If you want help, pull this way. I’ve got no boat to send out after you!”

Dick was pulling that way with all his might, and guided by the lanterns

that were held over the side, at last reached the boat,杭州高端男士休闲会所 which sat so low in the water that he could lay hold of her rail. The astonishment of her crew as they hauled aboard a man who carried all his wearing apparel around his neck, was unbounded. They gave him time to put on his clothes and then directed him to the captain who was waiting 杭州丝袜qqto see him.

[92]

The very first question that gentleman propounded to him aroused a thousand fears in Dick’s mind. The skipper wanted to know where he came from, and how he happened to be out there in the water, five miles from land; and the trapper, fearful that if he told the truth and acknowledged himself to be a deserter, the captain might follow the Tycoon and compel him to go aboard of her again, whether he wanted to or not, did something he had never done before—he made up a story all out of his own head, as he told Uncle Dick Gaylord, and 杭州夜网怎么充值 queer work he made of it. He entered into the particulars of a fearful shipwreck that had just occurred. The waves were as high as the Rocky Mountains, he said, the wind blew so hard that the sailors had to stop all work and hold their hair on (this was a quotation from one of the stories the trapper had heard in the forecastle of the Stranger); his ship was capsized no less than three times, always coming right side up again, and doing it so quickly that she did not even wet her sails or her deck, and none of the crew had a chance to drop off into the water 杭州个人丝袜上门 (another[93] quotation); but finally the wind came in such furious gusts that it took the masts right out by the roots (still another quotation), and the ship filled and went down like lead. The trapper said that all this happened not five minutes before, and that set the crew of 杭州洗浴娱乐休闲场所 the fishing-boat into a roar of laughter, for they had been out all day, and knew there had scarcely been wind enough to raise any white caps. The captain used some hard words, and called Dick anything but a truthful man; but the latter affirmed so solemnly that it was all so, that the skipper thought that perhaps something had happened after all, and spent a long time in cruising about the place where Dick had been picked up.

This delay added to the trapper’s fears. What if the Tycoon should come back in search of him? Alarmed by the thought, he labored hard 浙江杭州龙凤 to convince the captain that every soul on board the wrecked ship, except himself, had gone down with he