Bowery boy. “I’ve heard de men say dat de whale boat ’ud live in seas dat would sink de schooner.”

They parted, Noddy to go forward to his bunk in a storeroom, where sails, paint, etc., were stored, and Raynor to his cabin. Terror Carson and his mate sat at the table. They took no notice of the lad. In his cabin Raynor did not take his clothes off. He could not have slept. The excitement of the projected escape would have prohibited that. Midnight was the hour agreed upon, and he listened to the ship’s bell sounding the slowly passing hours, and half hours, with great impatience. At last the growl of voices in the cabin ceased and then two doors banged and Raynor knew the captain and mate had turned in. Just then the bell struck seven times. It was eleven-thirty.

“This is a bad night to leave the ship,” mused Raynor, as he sat waiting for the chiming of eight bells.

The schooner appeared to be under a press of canvas, for her hull was heeled over at a steep angle. At times she appeared to rush skyward and then hurtle down into a bottomless abyss. Raynor hoped the whaleboat was as seaworthy as such a type of boat is reputed to be. The thought of abandoning the enterprise, however, did not, enter his head. As Noddy had pointed out, it might be their only chance of escape, and Raynor longed for nothing more than to get free of the Polly Ann. It was his paramount ambition and it would have taken more than a stormy night to stop him.

As eight bells struck, Raynor rose and cautiously opened the door of his cabin a crack.

The swinging lamp outside was turned low and the main cabin empty. He stole cautiously out and then ascended the companionway to the deck.

Luckily, the companionway entrance was below a break in the stern so that the man at the wheel—Pompey—could not see him as, crouched almost double, he crept forward to the small deck house where Noddy had his berth. It was a wild night. Big seas, their white tops luminous, raced by, towering above the schooner’s rail. The speedy little vessel was heeled over almost on her beam ends at times, but she appeared remarkably seaworthy.

Not a soul could be seen on deck except Pompey’s dark form at the wheel, revealed by the faint glow-worm light of the binnacle lamp. At last Raynor, with infinite caution, reached Noddy’s sleeping place. He rapped three times, as they had agreed, and the door was opened.

Raynor almost uttered a cry of 

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