“Hey!” interrupted the boatman, with all his voice of wonder; and he sculled rapidly up, and alongside. “Master!” He peered through the mist. “Lord have mercy on ’s, ’tis himself trewthfully!”
“Old Jacob!” I cried, in a faint voice between laughing and sobbing. “Old Jacob, help us off this before we die!”
And after that I remember nothing.
CHAPTER XIII.
RAMPICK SPEAKS.
You remember old Jacob? ’Twas he seconded Harry so unhandsomely in the great fight. He had retired upon his savings now, and did no work, save when a still night persuaded him forth with line and trawling-net, and the loan of a friend’s boat could be procured. Such had been the case when we ran across him. He had taken advantage of the holiday spirit, which kept all “afternoon farmers” of the sea scrupulously away from it, to pull a few miles out in a borrowed craft, and try for a basket of fish to make a welcome garnish to his Christmas pot.
He was lying, when he picked us up, off the banks some four miles from land in a southerly direction, and in a few minutes was to have hauled in and returned home. By so narrow a margin of Providence were we acquitted. In all these hours, it appeared, we had made no nearer the coast than this; had just swung hither and thither gently, drifting south, on the whole, and making two feet shoreward, perhaps, for every one we retired. Probably, in the end, we should have dropped sluggishly on the banks again, unless the outward race of the tide, more vicious than the inward, had swept us over them. In either case, however, the result would have been the same, I believe. Another hour or two must have seen the finish of our endurance.
As it was, I don’t know how they got me on board. Harry, with his stronger fibre, rallied immediately under the excitement: the strain off, I collapsed—that was the difference between us. I was physically and mentally frozen; I could not make an effort on my own account; but lay on the planks, my head on my friend’s knees, listening, in a sort of staring dream, to the murmur of voices above me punctuated by old Jacob’s exclamations. They were telling him, I knew, enough of the facts to explain our situation; and I heard Harry impress upon him the necessity of keeping all to himself, until we had seen Mr. Sant, and learned what course he proposed to take. Old Jacob made no demur. He was honoured in their confidence for one thing, and, for another, his admiration for his former master was still so unspeakable, that he chuckled at the mere idea of temporarily sharing a secret with that great man.
Harry questioned him about Rampick’s doings since our abandonment on the sands. He knew nothing of the fellow; had neither seen nor heard of him. Probably, he thought, if he were convinced no one had witnessed our departure, he would, after deserting us, have pulled oblique up or down the coast, to some outlying station on it, in order to establish an alibi in case of inquiry.
“He were free to go his gait, without risk o’ being observed in these merry times,” said he. “Reckon he’s turned up late, with his story of Jack or Jim visited, and the wur-rds spoke, and mayhap some proof of what Jack give him or Jim lent, to the very tune of innercence.”
I heard them all. Their speech drummed on my brain, as if it were parchment, which was just what it felt like. I lay staring at the light of the moon, for my back was turned to the beautiful thing herself; and I was not unhappy, only utterly cold-blooded. I thought, perhaps, from my long semi-immersion I had become a fish. What a fate, to go gasping through the world, with round lidless eyes and ears palpitating like gills, and never to feel warm again!