“No, Miss Gale, then we ran out of bread and water.”
“Oh, Captain Biffer!”
“For seven days there wa’n’t any of either. Everybody laid down to die except me. I kep’ up on responsibility, and stood at the wheel day and night. I didn’t know where we was, and I didn’t care, but somehow I couldn’t let go of the wheel. Mebbe, if I’d appreciated nature a little more it would have helped, too, and I know a little food would have gone a long ways. But nature didn’t seem to need us, and we didn’t need nature. And all the food and water were gone, though pretty soon I didn’t care for that, either. I didn’t even care much when I saw a big steamer coming right toward us. I was glad, of course, but I didn’t care enough to make any hurrah over it, and neither did the men. But after we’d been carried on board, and I’d got through with a plate of soup, down in the Captain’s room, I says; ‘What day is it, Captain?’ ‘Why,’ he says, ‘didn’t you know? It’s Easter Sunday.’ ‘No,’ I says, ‘but the Lord be praised.’”
The glisten in Edith Gale’s eyes had become tears. Captain Biffer and I had had our differences. Perhaps in a general way he still believed me an ass. But I had walked over and taken his hand before I remembered it.
“I want to shake a brave man’s hand,” I said.
“Mr. Larkins,” said Gale, “suppose you give us your experience. What’s the best thing to keep up on through a long dark night?”
“Well, Admiral,” began Mr. Larkins, “I’ve never been shipwrecked, but I remember something about a dark night, and a man as got out into the wet of it. It was tin year ago, and I was comin’ out of Manchester on the bark Mary Collins, bound fer Bombay. She was a shlow old towboat, an’ the sailors were makin’ fun of her from the shtarrt. But there was one felly, named Doolan, who kep’ at it continual, an’ repeatin’ all day that he could shwim to Bombay sooner than we could get there on the Mary Collins. ‘An,’ Doolan,’ I says, ‘you may get a chance to thry it, if we hit one o’ thim shqualls that I run into here two year ago.’ An’ it was the next night that we did that same, an’ Doolan was up on the top-s’l yarrd. An’ whin the thwist of the shquall hit Doolan, he wint off wid a whoop an’ a currvin’ ploonge, an’ one of the men below yells out ‘Man overboard!’ an’ heaves a life-buoy into the blackness of it. But by the time we could put her about in that shquall, an’ get back, there was no Doolan. We hadn’t expected there would be. For whin a man dhrifts ashtern in a shquall on a darrk night his name may shtay Doolan, but it’s more than likely to be Dinnis. So afther callin’ an’ showin’ lights a bit, we wint on to Bombay in the direction that Doolan might be shwimmin’, if he had a mind, now, to thry. An’ whin we got to Bombay an’ I wint to the Cushtom House an’ walked in, I see a felly sthandin’ by the rail, an’ a-grinnin’, an’ by the Ghost of me Great Gran’mother if it wasn’t Doolan! ‘Don’t be frightened, sur,’ he says, ‘it’s me.’ ‘An’ Doolan!’ I says, ‘an’ how did you get here? ‘Shwimmin’,’ says Doolan, ‘an’ I told you I could beat the Mary Collins.’
“But it wasn’t shwimmin’ that saved Doolan, ner food, ner reshponsibility, ner even the beauties of nature, though he had a chance durin’ the night he fell over to view thim at close range. It was the life-buoy that saved Doolan, an’ kep’ him floatin’ till he was picked up next mornin’ by a shmarter boat that beat the Mary Collins to Bombay by one tide. I’m not sayin’ but that the others air sushtainin’ too, but it was the life-buoy that saved Doolan.”
“There are many kinds of life-buoys, Mr. Larkins,” laughed Edith Gale, “and I confess that Mr. Doolan seems to have found the one best suited to his needs. What is your experience, Mr. Emory?”
The quiet Second Officer was silent for a moment, and his face saddened.