Upon receiving no reply, Mr Farmer sent one of the top-men up to look at me. No sooner had he reached the topgallant rigging than he reported me dead. A cry of horror escaped from all the deck. The captain rushed up: he needed no report. He was frantic with grief. He wept like a child, and assisted with his own hands to lower me down; they were his arms that received, himself that bore me to his cabin. Like a wilful boy who had slain his pet lamb, or a passionate girl her dove, he mourned over me. It was a long time before my respiratory organs could be brought into play. My recovery was slow, and it was some time before I could arrange my ideas. A cot was slung for me in the cabin, and bewildered and exhausted, I fell into a deep sleep.
I awoke a little after midnight perfectly composed, and suffering only from the weal that the cord had made across my chest. Before a table, and his countenance lighted by a single lantern, sat the captain. His features expressed a depth of grief and a remorse that were genuine. He sat motionless, with his eyes fixed upon my cot: my face he could not see, owing to the depth of the shadow in which I lay. I moved: he advanced to my cot with the gentleness of a woman, and softly uttered:—
“Ralph, my dear boy, do you sleep?”
The tones of his voice fell soothingly upon my ear like the music of a mother’s prayer.
“No, Captain Reud; but I am very thirsty.”
In an instant he was at my side with some weak wine and water. I took it from the hand of him whom, a few hours before, in my animosity I could have slain.
“Ralph,” said he, as he received back the tumbler, “Ralph, are we friends?”
“Oh! Captain Reud, how could you treat a poor lad thus, who respected, who loved you so much?”
“I was mad—do you forgive me, Ralph?” and he took my not unwilling hand.
“To be sure; but do me one little favour in return.”