He looked down quickly to the light, and did as I suggested.  Then he held it out at arm’s length, and peered up again into the darkness.

“See anything?” asked the Old Man, suddenly observing his attitude.

Plummer glanced at him, with a start.

“It’s ther r’yal, Sir,” he explained.  “It’s all adrift.”

“What!” said the Old Man.

He was standing a few ratlines up the t’gallant rigging, and he bent his body outwards to get a better look.

“Mr. Tulipson!” he shouted.  “Do you know that the royal’s all adrift?”

“No, Sir,” answered the Second Mate.  “If it is, it’s more of this devilish work!”

“It’s adrift right enough,” said the Skipper, and he and the Second went a few ratlines higher, keeping level with one another.

I had now got above the crosstrees, and was just at the Old Man’s heels.

Suddenly, he shouted out: 

“There he is!—­Stubbins!  Stubbins!”

“Where, Sir?” asked the Second, eagerly.  “I can’t see him!”

“There! there!” replied the Skipper, pointing.

I leant out from the rigging, and looked up along his back, in the direction his finger indicated.  At first, I could see nothing; then, slowly, you know, there grew upon my sight a dim figure crouching upon the bunt of the royal, and partly hidden by the mast.  I stared, and gradually it came to me that there was a couple of them, and further out upon the yard, a hump that might have been anything, and was only visible indistinctly amid the flutter of the canvas.

“Stubbins!” the Skipper sung out.  “Stubbins, come down out of that!  Do you hear me?”

But no one came, and there was no answer.

“There’s two—­” I began; but he was shouting again: 

“Come down out of that!  Do you damned well hear me?”

Still there was no reply.

“I’m hanged if I can see him at all, Sir!” the Second Mate called out from his side of the mast.

“Can’t see him!” said the Old Man, now thoroughly angry.  “I’ll soon let you see him!”

He bent down to me with the lantern.

“Catch hold, Jessop,” he said, which I did.

Then he pulled the blue light from his pocket, and as he was doing so, I saw the Second peek round the back side of the mast at him.  Evidently, in the uncertain light, he must have mistaken the Skipper’s action; for, all at once, he shouted out in a frightened voice: 

“Don’t shoot, Sir!  For God’s sake, don’t shoot!”

“Shoot be damned!” exclaimed the Old Man.  “Watch!”

He pulled off the cap of the light.

“There’s two of them, Sir,” I called again to him.

“What!” he said in a loud voice, and at the same instant he rubbed the end of the light across the cap, and it burst into fire.

He held it up so that it lit the royal yard like day, and straightway, a couple of shapes dropped silently from the royal on to the t’gallant yard.  At the same moment, the humped Something, midway out upon the yard, rose up.  It ran in to the mast, and I lost sight of it.