CHAPTER VI.
IN WHICH A BAD MAN SUDDENLY DISAPPEARS.
We had watched Caleb Merkin closely ever since the encounter in the steerage, but I must confess that I had supposed it was done so secretly that he had not suspected it. His words revealed the truth, and I saw that he was about as angry as he could get, and willing to do anything while in this frame of mind.
I tried my best to keep my feet and with my left hand held to the rail. But the Mariposa was now tumbling and tossing under the full force of the storm, and it looked very much as if both of us might go overboard.
"Let go!" I cried. "Let go, or I will cry for help and have you placed under arrest."
"Keep still!" was his only answer. And then he lifted me again, and both of us struggled as I had never struggled before, not even when in peril in Cuba. Nobody was near, and, strange to say, Oliver failed to come back.
He had me about halfway over the rail, when, by an almost superhuman effort, I caught him
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