Laboriously he sat up on the side of his bunk and in doing so became aware of a sailor asleep in the crib opposite. His stertorous breathing stirred a doubt in Jeff's mind. Perhaps the crimps had taken him too. The ship was rolling a good deal, but by a succession of tacks Jeff staggered to the scuttle and climbed the hatchway to the deck. A wintry sun was shining, and for a few moments he stood blinking in the light. She was a three-masted schooner and was plunging forward into the choppy seas outside the jaws of the harbor. He whiffed the salt tang of the air and tasted the flying spray. An ebb tide was lifting the vessel forward on a freshening wind, and trim as a greyhound she slipped through the cat's-paws. A thickset, powerful figure paced to and fro on the quarter-deck, occasionally bellowing an order in a tremendous voice like the roar of a bull. He was getting canvas set for the fresh breeze of the open seas that was catching him astern, and the sailors were jumping to obey his orders. The pounding sails and the singing cordage, the rattling blocks and the whipping ropes, would have told Jeff they were scudding along fast, even if the heeling of the schooner and its swift forward leaps had not made it plain. “By God, Jones, she's walking,” he heard the captain boom across to the mate. Just then a figure cut past him and made straight for the captain. Farnum recognized in it the sailor whom he had left asleep in the forecastle and even in that fleeting glance was aware of the man's livid fury. Up the steps he went like a wild beast. “What kind of a boat is this?” he panted hoarsely. The captain turned toward him. His eyes were shining wickedly, but his voice was ominously suave and honeyed. “This boat, son, is a threemasted schooner, name of _Nancy Hanks_, Master Joshua Green, bound for the Solomon Islands with a cargo of Oregon fir.” “I've been shanghaied. This is a nest of crimps,” the man screamed. Joshua Green's salient jaw came forward. “Been shanghaied, have you? And we're a nest of crimps, are we? Son, the less I hear of that line of talk the better. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.” The man turned loose a flood of profanity and swore he would rot in hell before he would touch a rope on that ship. Out went Green's great gnarled fist. The seaman shot back from the quarterdeck and struck a pile of rope below. He was up again and down again almost quicker than it takes to tell. Three times he hit the planks before he lay still. The captain stood over him, his eyes blazing. He looked the savage, barbaric slavedriver he was.