Page:The Dark Frigate (Hawes).djvu/220

Phil raised his head and renewed his hold, for he could not cling there forever; yet how to introduce himself on board the ship was a question that sorely puzzled him. He threw a bare leg over the sill, the more easily to rest, and revolved the problem in his mind. They were plainly honest Englishmen, and right glad would he have been to get himself in among them. Yet if he came like a thief in the night, they must suspect him of evil intentions without end. While he thus attacked the problem from one side and from the other, it occurred to him that the best way was to crawl down again into the water and swim back to the shore from whence he had come. There, having donned his clothes, he would call for help. Surely there was no one so hard of heart as to refuse a lad help in escaping from the pirates.

He raised his leg to swing it out of the window again and put his scheme into practice, when he felt — and it startled him nearly out of his skin — a hand lay hold on his ankle.

If you will balance yourself on the outside of any window with one foot over the sill, you will find it exceedingly difficult to pull your foot away from some one inside the window without throwing yourself off the wall, and Phil for the moment was reluctant to make the plunge. Slowly at first he twisted and pulled, but to no purpose. With waxing vigour he struggled and yanked and kicked and jerked, but completely failed to get his ankle out of the hand that held it.

It seemed that a gentleman who had been sitting at a little desk, so placed that Phil could not have seen it without thrusting his head all the way into the cabin, had looked up, and, perceiving to his mild surprise a