In absolute desperation Sailor began to climb. He knew that if he disobeyed he would be flung into the sea. Clinging, feet and claws, like a cat, for the sake of the life he hadn't the courage to lose, he fought his way up somehow through the icy wind and the icier spray that was ever leaping up and hitting him, no matter how high he went. He fought his way as far as the lower yardarm. Here he clung helpless, dazed with terror, faint with exhaustion. Commands were screamed from below, which he could not understand, which he could not have obeyed had he understood them, since he now lacked the power to stir from his perch. His hands were frozen stiff; there was neither use nor breath in his body; the motions of the ship were such that if he tried to shift a finger he would be flung to the deck he could no longer see, and be pulped like an apple. So he clung frantically to the shrouds, trying to keep his balance, although he had merely to let go an instant in order to end his troubles. But this he could not do; and in the meantime commands and threats were howled at him in vain. "Come down, then," bawled the Old Man at last, beside himself with fury. But the boy couldn't move one way or the other. At that moment it was no more possible to come down than it was to go up higher. They had to roll up the sails without his aid. After that the fury of the wind and the sea seemed to abate a bit. Perhaps this was more Henry Harper's fancy than anything else; but at least it enabled him to gather the strength to move from his perch and slide down the futtock shrouds to the deck. The Old Man was waiting for him at the foot of the mast. He took him by the throat. "One o' you fetch me a bight o' cord," he roared quietly. He had to roar to make himself heard at all, but it was a quiet sort of roar that meant more than it could express. He was promptly obeyed by two or three. There was going to be a bit of fun with Sailor. Frank, an Arab and reckoned nothing as a seaman, was the first with the cord, but Louis, a Peruvian, was hard on his heels. The boy wondered dimly what was going to happen.