It is difficult to say precisely why Jane did not wish to have Rollo go and ask the helmsman about the bell, but she had an instinctive feeling that it was better not to do it. So Rollo sat still. His attention was very soon turned away from the bell by Jane's calling out to him to see some sailors go up the rigging. There were regular _shrouds_, as they are called, that is, ladders formed of ropes, which led up on each side of the masts part way to where the sailors seemed to wish to go. Above the top of the shrouds there were only single ropes, and Rollo wondered what the sailors would do when they came to these. They found no difficulty, however, for when they reached the top of the shrouds they continued to mount by the ropes with very little apparent effort. They would take hold of two of the ropes that were a little distance apart with their hands, and then, curling their legs round them in a peculiar manner below, they would mount up very easily. They thus reached the _yard_, as it is called, which is a long, round beam, extending along the upper edge of the sail, and, spreading themselves out upon it in a row, they proceeded to do the work required upon the sail, leaning over upon the yard above, and standing upon a rope, which was stretched for the purpose along the whole length of it below. "I wonder if _I_ could climb up there," said Rollo. "Do you suppose they would let me try?" "No, indeed!" said Jane, very earnestly; "you must not try, by any means." "I believe that I _could_ climb up there," said Rollo; "that is, if the vessel would stop rocking to and fro, and hold still." Presently, however, a boy, who appeared to be about eighteen or nineteen years of age, and who was upon another mast, accomplished a feat which even Rollo himself admitted that he should not dare to undertake. It seemed that he had some operation to perform upon a part of the rigging down some fifteen feet from where he was; so, with a rope hung over his shoulder, he came down hand over hand, by a single rope or cable called a _stay_, until he reached the place where the work was to be performed. Here he stopped, and, clinging to the rope that he had come down upon with his legs and one hand, he contrived with the other hand to fasten one end of the short rope which he had brought with him to the stay, and then, carrying the other end across, he fastened it to another cable which was near. He then seated himself upon this cross rope as upon a seat, and clinging to his place by his legs, he had his hands free for his work. When he had finished his work he untied the cross rope, and then went up the cable hand over hand a he had come down. [Illustration] "I am sure I could not do that," said Rollo. "And I should not think that any body but a monkey could do it, or a spider."