"
I may as well here observe that the carpenter had been listening to the
story as he sat by the hatchway on deck, and it was he who had favored
us with the _miaw_ which had so frightened the boy. As soon as the
lantern had been received and the candle relighted, Dick recommenced.
"Well, my lads, I said that the captain went down below, brought up his
gun, and let fly at the cat, and then--well, and then--the cat gave a
loud shriek, and falls down upon the deck. The captain walks forward to
it, takes it up by the tail, brings it aft, and shies it among the men.
"'There, you fools,' said he, 'it is the cat himself; will you believe
your own eyes?'
"And sure enough, so it was; for, you see, when Jim tumbled overboard,
it being then dark, and we so busy with Jim, we did not look after the
cat, and so it must have crawled up the cable and run down into the hold
while the hatches were off; and all that noise heard aft must have been
the brute chasing the rats, I suppose. Jim may have heard, but he could
not have seen, the cat; that was all fancy and fright. You know how long
a cat will live without much food, and so the animal was pretty quiet
after it had killed all the rats.
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