At last, he stopped a man carrying a lanthorn.
"Can you tell me where Jack Robinson is, please ?" "Who ?" said the sailor, staring.

"Ain't nobody o' that name here." "I mean Tom Jeffs," said the Skipper hurriedly.
"Oh, him! Ashore with the gig, waiting to bring the skipper aboard." Bob looked about again and finding himself close by, and knowing his way, he went nervously into his father's cabin, where a lamp hung beneath the sky-light, but it was turned down very low.

The place was empty, and all seemed very dark and lonely, but he could hear the crew stumping about and making strange noises as if busy preparing to start.
Then he started, for the steam whistle gave out a dismal shriek, and then there was a low hissing and humming noise, announcing that there was too heavy a pressure of steam.
The boy, after walking about the cabin a few times, sat down on one of the lockers, and the humming, buzzing noise of the escaping steam began to have a strange effect upon him.

First he began to nod, and then he dropped off fast asleep, but started up again directly and began to walk about to try and keep awake.
But he was utterly worn out with the excitement he had gone through; the gloomy cabin was hot and close, and in spite of trying hard to keep awake, his eyelids grew more and more heavy, and at last, almost without knowing what he did, he crept to his father's berth, drew the curtain back, and threw himself down; the curtain dropped back across it, and the next minute he was sleeping soundly, with the dull, snorting, humming buzz of the escaping steam going on and mingling with his dreams.
After a time he had a faint consciousness of hearing voices in the cabin, where the lamp had been turned up.

One of the voices seemed to be that of his father, and a faint quiver ran through him, while he felt as if he were in among the fir-trees, where the thick rope had been fixed up to two of the stems, and he was gently swinging to and fro.