Tip Top Library: Frank Merriwell in the South Seas — page 8: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Captain Dunbar looked half amused, half vexed. He hadn’t the slightest desire to scold the bright young passenger, but he was astern disciplinarian, and he felt that the dignity of the ship had been of- fended. | ‘You should know better, Dr. burn!’ he said, sharply. match under my very nose! go aft!”’ Shamed and angry, the doctor marched Ray- Go aft, sir; FRANK MERRIWELL IN THE SOUTH SEAS. where he observed the proceedings with regard to the shipwrecked crew. CHAPTER II. FRANK WINS HIS CASE. It was a strange scene that presented “cA wrestilng (xieess when Frank leaned over the rail near the bridge. Above him Captain Dunbar and First Officer Murray were looking down at the away, growling to Frank, who went with | boat load of Chinamen silently. him: ‘Nice sort of chap you are! I thought you wanted.to save Murray from trouble by getting down without any noise ?”’ “So I did,’ replied Frank, ‘‘but as long as two of us could tuinble there was no danger that the captain would suspect J had been on the bridge; see?” ‘*I don’t see any fun in it. You’ve no business to langh so! You’ve saved Mur- tay from trouble and got me into dis- grace——”? ‘SAnd I’m sorry for it,’’ interrupted Frank, seriously; ‘‘it was my fault, though you might have been a little more decent 1n coming to help me. There was no need of insulting me with your talk about British kids having more pluck than a Yankee.’ . Dr. Rayburn grated his teeth and mut. tered : ‘TY was more than half right about that, anyway.’? ‘“Well,’? said Frank, quietly, ‘ ‘per- haps you are. I’ve nothing to say on that point, but one thing I'll prove. I’m not afraid to take your disgrace on my shoulders, and Pll doit. Ill square you with the captain before the day is half over.”’ Rayburn shrugged his shoulders in- eredulously, and Frank, seeing that the doctor was not to be soothed, left him and returned to the vicinity of the bridge, On the forward deck below a group of sailors stood holding a line that had been thrown on board by the Chinese A boatswain was among them waiting for the captain’s order either to make fast the line or to letit go. Several of the crew in the boat along- side were holding it away from the steamer’s side by pushing their oars against her 1ron hull. And the shipwrecked crew itself That was naturally the climax of in- terest, but it seemed to be much more fascinating than it. might have been if jthe mariners had been whites instead of yellow Celestials. | More than twenty of them were crowded into the long, narrow boat. Less than half were at the oars. Most of them were half lying, half sitting upon the seats and on the bottom of the boat. All had their faces turned upward— and such faces! Yellow, and deeply tanned at that: gaunt, hungry, wolfish faces, with parted lips, high cheek bones, and dull, staring eyes. One would have said at a 1 glance that they were at the last verge of starvation. Their clothing was scant and rapeed. Some of them seemed unable to hold their heads up, supporting them wearily upon their hands and resting their elbows on the gunwale of the boat. (CO fl Goo (CO