out on the jib-boom. But the poor skipper wa'n't satisfied with any of
them places; he started for the lee rail, and Lobelia 'Ankins started
after him.

"She caught him as he was going to jump overboard and yanked him back
like he was a bag of meal. She shook him, she boxed his ears, she pulled
his hair, and all the time he was begging and pleading and she was
screeching and jabbering at the top of her lungs. Hammond pulled me by
the sleeve.

"'It'll be our turn next,' says he; 'get into the boat! Quick!'

"The little boat that the crew had come in was towing behind the
schooner. We slid over the stern and dropped into it. Hammond cut the
towline and we laid to the oars. Long as we was in the hearing of the
schooner the powwow and rumpus kept up, but just as we was landing on
the little island that the Malays had left, she come about on the port
tack and stood off to sea.

"'Lobelia's running things again,' says Hammond.

"Three days after this we was took off by a Dutch gunboat. Most of
the time on the island we spent debating how Lobelia come to be on the
schooner. Finally we decided that she must have gone aboard to sleep
that night, suspecting that we'd try to run away in the schooner just as
we had tried to. We talked about Whiskers and his crew and guessed about
how they came to abandon their boat in the first place. One thing we was
sartin sure of, and that was that they'd left Lobelia aboard on purpose.
We knew mighty well that's what we'd a-done.