Besides that, if you draw it well down it'll keep his arms fast."
The cook thanked him fervently, and routing out a sack, rushed hastily on
deck, his departure being the signal for Mr. Henshaw and his friends to
make preparations for retiring for the night so hastily as almost to
savour of panic.
The cook, after a hasty glance ashore, went softly below with the sack
over his arm and felt his way in the darkness to the skipper's bunk. The
sound of deep and regular breathing reassured him, and without undue
haste he opened the mouth of the sack and gently raised the sleeper's
head.
"Eh? Wha----" began a sleepy voice.
The next moment the cook had bagged him, and gripping him tightly round
the middle, turned a deaf ear to the smothered cries of his victim as he
strove to lift him out of the bunk. In the exciting time which followed,
he had more than one reason for thinking that he had caught a centipede.
"Now, you keep still," he cried, breathlessly. "I'm not going to hurt
you."
He got his burden out of bed at last, and staggered to the foot of the
companion-ladder with it. Then there was a halt, two legs sticking
obstinately across the narrow way and refusing to be moved, while a
furious humming proceeded from the other end of the sack.
Four times did the exhausted cook get his shoulder under his burden and
try and push it up the ladder, and four times did it wriggle and fight
its way down again.
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