I dropped the belaying-pin, and, slashing the shoe strings of the Captain's boots, jumped out of them and overboard after the drowning Finn. As I swam near him his hands went up and with a shriek he sank below. After several attempts at diving, I finally caught him by the arm, and arose to the surface. Swimming over to the gangway, I caught hold of the boat painter, and, throwing his arms over the rope, I managed to crawl onto the lower platform, then pulling and struggling with this dead burden, I gradually made my way to the deck.
I dumped him down on the break of the poop and ran for the cook's pork barrel. It wasn't that I was so terribly interested in this lifeless thing, but I was interested in knowing that should I lose him I would be forced to sail short-handed, as there were no sailors here who cared to stray far away from the cocoanuts and yams.
When it came to rolling I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I rolled him under the barrel and over it, and stimulated him with artificial respiration. After about one hour he began to show signs of life. I then carried him forward to his bunk, taking off his shoes and stockings.
My attention was caught by his feet, for he had one large toe on each foot, and in place of the smaller toes all that remained was a thin tissue or web, extending from the large toe to where the smaller one should be. Then it dawned upon me that the reason this man never went barefooted was his bashfulness of these duck-like feet. After covering him over in the bunk, I hurried to where Riley was lying in the boat, finding him cuddled up with his head between his legs.
I decided to leave him there, but secured him fast with a rope, in such a way that when he became sober it would be necessary for some one to come to his rescue; I was not going to take any chances on having to be the pearl diver to fish Riley from the depth of Suva Harbor.
Away to the eastward the faint rays of a new day were shown in an amber sky streaked with brilliant pink. Taking the cook's alarm clock, I went below to secure some sleep before five o'clock. While fixing the mosquito net over the port hole in my room I was startled by hearing a cry which resolved itself into, "Murder, murder, begorra it's tied they have me. Hivenly Father, to think I should be ate up by those damned cannibals and not a soul in sight to see the last of Michael Dennis Riley."
I would gladly have left Riley tugging and pulling at the diamond hitch that bound him, but I was afraid that his cries of murder would attract the Fiji policemen ashore. It required tact and skill and diplomacy to untie Riley. He was snapping and kicking, and dangerous to get near. He was calling on all the angels in Heaven to witness the terrible crime he was about to be subjected to. I assured him that his old tough and tarry hide was not even fit for a shark to eat, let alone a decent Fiji cannibal.
He seemed to scent a kindly influence, but was rather inclined to resent the idea of having a tarry hide. After his hands and feet were free he wanted to fight it out there, and then saying that it did not matter a tinker's damn who called him this name, but there was no man that could get away with an insulting remark like calling him a tarry-hide or an old shell-back.
"Be Hivins, the cannibals are bad enough," he said, "but to call a dacent man a name like this is too much for the pride of Ireland to stand."
As he struggled to his feet I stepped over to the blind side of him and tightened the clove hitch around his neck. I had no desire to let this drunk-crazed Irishman loose on the boat. After much coaxing and reassuring he finally recognized me and offered an apology. I took the hitch off his neck, and let him up to the deck, where he begged for one more hour's sleep. I called the cook to get breakfast, as it was nearly five o'clock, and had a look at the Finn, who seemed none the worse for his plunge in the harbor. The freaky and webby toes were sticking out over the bunk and I wondered if it were possible to drown a man with feet like these, since they had all the characteristics of a duck's foot.