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The mate suggested that it was not wise to send so obviously helpless a lad up where he could not possibly do any good, and whence it was more than likely that he might fall and be killed; which proves that the mate’s bark was worse than his bite, for I have personally known brutes who would have insisted upon a lad like that going aloft under similar conditions to almost certain death.

Now Frank’s plight was bad enough, but his native pluck began to get the better of his physical misery and his mental confusion, and he actually began to think of what a fine story of adventure he would have to tell when he got home again. He had of course not the slightest idea what an ordinary everyday sea-experience he was sharing. He could, however, and did, feel some admiration and envy for the sailors, who, clinging like bats to the yards high above him, were struggling to secure the great thrashing sails, even wished that he could do what they were doing, for he dimly felt that their deeds were heroic, more so than all his reading had prepared him for.