‘“That ’on’t do, cap’n,” I says. “I’m off.”
‘I went to the lee side of the poop, where our ould bo’t was made fast, to have a look at my mates. The ould thing was tumblin’ abaout suthen, for there was a heavy backwash off the ship’s quarter. As she came up on a sea they caught sight o’ me and started pullin’ faces and shakin’ their heads, and next time I see them they was doin’ the same. I tumbled to it quick enough that they wanted to say suthen to me, and a course they couldn’t shaout it out, so I threw ’em the fall o’ the mizzen sheet, and me and one o’ the crew pulled ould Somers aboard.
‘“For ’eaven’s sake,” he says, close in my ear, “make a bargin quick! She’s a comin’ off by herself! We’ve got a lead on the graound, and she’s moved twenty foot already.”
‘I went back to the cap’n, and he was all on fidgetin’ worse’n ever, so I says, “Cap’n, my mates’ll be satisfied with three hundred paound.”
‘“Don’t you do no such thing,” says the pilot; “she’ll come off all right.”
‘“I’ll stick to my two hundred,” says the cap’n.
‘I dursn’t wait, so I closed on it, and the mate writ aout two agreements, one for the cap’n and t’other for me. Our chaps soon got the kedge anchor and a hundred fathoms o’ warp into the lugger and laid that right aout astern, and I give the order for the lower main torpsail and upper fore torpsail to be set.
‘Then our chaps come aboard, and what with heavin’ her astern a bit every time she lifted to a sea and them two torpsails aback, she come off in half an hour.
‘Yes, yes; we got thirteen pound apiece, and if it hadn’t been for that pilot we’d a got double.’