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.
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