“Shake the reefs out of the mainsail! loose the fore-topsail! Why, how slow you move to help a neighbor! Sam, do you know the way in there? It seems to be all breakers.”
“I know the way, captain; there’s water enough.”
“Then shove her in: we’ll soon know what’s the matter.”
Ben, propped up with pillows, and now able to converse, received with heartfelt joy his old shipmate, who sat down beside him, while the young men gazed with awe upon the great bones and muscles, made prominent by the wasting of the flesh, and called to mind the wonderful stories they had heard of his strength.
“What do you think of that, boys, for a lion’s paw?” said the captain, taking up Ben’s right arm, and showing it to the astonished group. “Now, Mrs. Rhines,” said he, “do you get a couple of axes, and John and Frank will cut some wood, while Sam and myself get your husband up, and put some clean clothes on him, and I will shave him; then you can make the bed, and we will put him back; for I suppose he has not been moved since he was taken sick.”
“No,” said Sally; “it was impossible for me to move him.”
These strong and willing hands soon put a new face on matters. With a roaring fire in the old fireplace, clean linen on the bed, the house put to rights, Ben shaved, and his spirits excited by hope, everything seemed cheerful.
“Frank,” said the captain, “go aboard, and in my berth you’ll find a pot of tamarinds and a box of guava jelly; they’ll be just the stuff for him: I got them fresh in Matanzas.”
“Frank,” said Sam, “get a couple dozen oranges out of my chest.”