CHAPTER NINE.
OUR STOWAWAY TUMBLES INTO LUCK.
"A man in the forepeak--eh ?" yelled out Captain Gillespie, all his complacency gone in a moment, his voice sounding so loudly that it deadened the moaning of the wind through the shrouds and the creaking of the ship's timbers, whose groans mingled with the heavy thud of the waves against her bows as she breasted them, and the angry splash of the baffled billows as they fell back into the bubbling, hissing cauldron of broken water through which the noble vessel plunged and rolled, spurning it beneath her keel in her majesty and might.

"A man in the forepeak, and dead, is he, bosun?
I'll bet I'll soon quicken him into life again with a rope's-end!" He muttered these last words as he hastily scrambled down the poop ladder and along the weather side of the main-deck towards the forecastle, making his way forward with an activity which might have shamed a younger man.
Mr Mackay at once tumbled after him, and I followed too, as quickly as I could get along and the motion of the ship would allow me, being buffeted backwards and forwards like a shuttlecock between the bulwarks and deck-house in my progress onwards, as well as drenched by the spray, which came hurtling inboards over the main-chains from windward as it was borne along by the breeze, wetting everything amidships and soaking the main-sail as if buckets of water were continually poured over it, although the air was quite dry and the sun still shining full upon its swelling surface.
"Begorra, he's as did as a door-nail, sorr," I heard Tim Rooney saying on my getting up at last to the others, who were grouped with a number of the crew round the small hatchway under the forecastle leading down to the forehold below, the cover of which had been slipped off leaving the dark cavity open.

"I ownly filt him jist move once, whin I kicked him wid me fut unknowns to me, as I wor sayin' about stowin' the cable." "Dead men don't move," replied the captain sharply, the hands round grinning at the boatswain's Irish bull.

"Some of you idlers there, go down and fetch this stowaway up and let us see what he's made of." The boatswain, spurred by Captain Gillespie's rejoinder, was the first to dive down again into the dark receptacle, where he had previously been searching to find room for stowing the cable, the anchor having been hoisted inboard and the chain unshackled on the ship now getting to sea; and, Tim was quickly followed below by a couple of the other hands, as many as could comfortably squeeze into the narrow space at their command.
"On deck, there!" presently called out Tim Rooney from beneath, his voice sounding hollow and far off.
"Some av ye bind owver the coamin' av the hatch an' hilp us to raise the poor divil!" A dozen eager hands were immediately stretched downwards; and, the next instant, between them all they lifted out of the forepeak the limp body of a ragged youth, who seemed to be either already dead or dying, not a movement being discernible in the inert, motionless figure as it was laid down carefully by the men on the deck, looking like a corpse.
Captain Gillespie, however, was not deceived by these appearances.
"Sluice some water over his face," cried he, after leaning down and putting his hand on his chest; "he's only swooned away or shamming, for he's breathing all right.

Look, his shirt is moving up and down now." "I think he must be pretty far gone with starvation," observed Mr Mackay, bending over the unconscious lad, too, and scrutinising his pinched features and bony frame.