At 9 P. M. Dodd took his little party down on deck again, being now the safest place; for the mast might go.
It was a sad scene: the deck was now dry, and the dead bodies lay quiet around them with glassy eyes; and, grotesquely horrible, the long hair of two or three was stiff and crystallised with the saltpetre in the ship.
Mrs. Beresford clung to Vespasian: she held his bare black shoulder with one white and jewelled hand, and his wrist with the other, tight. “Oh, Mr. Black,” said she, “how brave you are! It is incredible. Why, you came back! I must feel a brave man with both my hands or I shall die. Your skin is nice and soft, too. I shall never outlive this dreadful day.”
And now that the water was too low to wash them off the hawser, several of the ship's company came back to the ship to help the women down.
By noon the Agra's deck was thirty feet from the sand. The rescued ones wanted to break their legs and necks, but Dodd would not permit even that. He superintended the whole manoeuvre, and lowered, first the dead, then the living, not omitting the poor goat, who was motionless and limp with fright.
When they were all safe on the sand, Dodd stood alone upon the poop a minute, cheered by all the sailors, French and English, ashore, then slid down a rope and rejoined his companions.
To their infinite surprise, the undaunted one was found to be snivelling.
“Oh, dear! what is the matter?” said Mrs. Beresford tenderly.
“The poor Agra, ma'am! She was such a beautiful sea-boat: and just look at her now! Never sail again: never! never! She was a little crank in beating, I can't deny it; but how she did fly with the wind abaft. She sank a pirate in the straits, and weathered a hurricane off the Mauritius; and after all for a lubber to go and lay her bones ashore in a fair wind: poor dear beauty!”
He maundered thus, and kept turning back to look at the wreck, till he happened to lay his hand on his breast He stopped in the middle of his ridiculous lament wore a look of self-reproach, and cast his eyes upward in heartfelt gratitude.