“Starboard, hard!” he shouted suddenly.

“Starboard it is!” replied the man at the wheel, with prompt obedience.

In another moment Barney slid down the back-stay and stood on the deck, while the ship rounded to and narrowly missed striking a small boat that floated keel up on the water.  There was no cry from the boat; and it might have been passed as a mere wreck, had not the lynx eye of Barney noticed a dark object clinging to it.

“Lower away a boat, lads,” cried the Irishman, springing overboard; and the words had scarcely passed his lips when the water closed over his head.

The Firefly was hove to, a boat was lowered and rowed towards Barney, whose strong voice guided his shipmates towards him.  In less than a quarter of an hour the bold sailor and his young friend Martin Rattler were safe on board, and the ship’s head was again turned out to sea.

It was full half an hour before Martin was restored to consciousness in the forecastle, to which his deliverer had conveyed him.

“Musha, lad, but ye’re booked for the blue wather now, an’ no mistake!” said Barney, looking with an expression of deep sympathy at the poor boy, who sat staring before him quite speechless.  “The capting’ll not let ye out o’ this ship till ye git to the gould coast, or some sich place.  He couldn’t turn back av he wanted iver so much; but he doesn’t want to, for he needs a smart lad like you, an’ he’ll keep you now, for sartin.”

Barney sat down by Martin’s side and stroked his fair curls, as he sought in his own quaint fashion to console him.  But in vain.  Martin grew quite desperate as he thought of the misery into which poor Aunt Dorothy Grumbit would be plunged, on learning that he had been swept out to sea in a little boat, and drowned, as she would naturally suppose.  In his frenzy he entreated and implored the captain to send him back in the boat, and even threatened to knock out his brains with a handspike if he did not; but the captain smiled and told him that it was his own fault.  He had no business to be putting to sea in a small boat in rough weather, and he might be thankful he wasn’t drowned.  He wouldn’t turn back now for fifty pounds twice told.

At length Martin became convinced that all hope of returning home was gone.  He went quietly below, threw himself into one of the sailor’s berths, turned his face to the wall, and wept long and bitterly.

CHAPTER VI

THE VOYAGE, A PIRATE, CHASE, WRECK, AND ESCAPE

Time reconciles a man to almost anything.  In the course of time Martin Rattler became reconciled to his fate, and went about the ordinary duties of a cabin-boy on board the Firefly just as if he had been appointed to that office in the ordinary way,—­with the consent of the owners and by the advice of his friends.  The captain, Skinflint by name, and as surly an old fellow as ever walked a quarter-deck, agreed to pay him wages “if he behaved well.”  The steward, under whose immediate authority he was placed, turned out to be a hearty, good-natured young fellow, and was very kind to him.  But Martin’s great friend was Barney O’Flannagan, the cook, with whom he spent many an hour in the night watches, talking over plans, and prospects, and retrospects, and foreign lands.