make hid or tail of them--be dashed to book-readin'!

The brig had old-fashioned wide channels, regular platforms; and
she floated so low in the water that they were scarcely a foot
above the level of the dinghy.

Mr Button secured the boat by passing the painter through a
channel plate, then, with Emmeline and her parcel in his arms or
rather in one arm, he clambered over the channel and passed her
over the rail on to the deck. Then it was Dick's turn, and the
children stood waiting whilst the old sailor brought the beaker of
water, the biscuit, and the tinned stuff on board.

It was a place to delight the heart of a boy, the deck of the
Shenandoah; forward right from the main hatchway it was
laden with timber. Running rigging lay loose on the deck in coils,
and nearly the whole of the quarter-deck was occupied by a deck-
house. The place had a delightful smell of sea-beach, decaying
wood, tar, and mystery. Bights of buntline and other ropes were
dangling from above, only waiting to be swung from. A bell was
hung just forward of the foremast. In half a moment Dick was
forward hammering at the bell with a belaying pin he had picked
from the deck.

Mr Button shouted to him to desist; the sound of the bell jarred
on his nerves. It sounded like a summons, and a summons on that
deserted craft was quite out of place. Who knew what mightn't
answer it in the way of the supernatural?

Dick dropped the belaying pin and ran forward. He took the