As I look at him now, sitting in my office-chair, the smoke of the cigar curling about his bronzed, weather-tanned face, my eye taking in his slim waist, slender thighs, and long, sinewy arms and hands that have served him so well all his life, I can hardly believe that twenty years have passed over his head since we worked together on Shark Ledge. But for the marks chalked on his temples by the Old Man with the Hour-glass and the few tally-scores of hard work crossing the corners of his mouth and eyes, he has the same external appearance as in the old days. Even these indexes of advancing years are lost when he throws his head up and laughs one of his spontaneous, ringing laughs that fills my office full of sunshine, illumining it for hours after he has gone.
"This pilotin' 's pretty rough sometimes," Captain Bob continued between the puffs of smoke, "but it ain't nothin' to the old days. When I look back on it all, seems to me as if we was out o' our heads most o' the time. I didn't know it then, but 'twas true all the same. Think now o' layin' the Screamer broadside on that stone pile at Shark Ledge, unloadin' them stone with nothin' but a couple o' spar buoys to keep 'er off. Wonder I didn't leave 'er bones there. Would if I hadn't knowed every stick o' timber in 'er and jest what she could stagger under."
"But she was a good sea-boat," I interpolated. "The Screamer was always the pride of the work."
"None better. You'd a-thought so if you'd been with us that night off Hatteras; we layin' to, hatches battened down. I never see it blow wuss. It came out o' the nor'west 'bout dark, and 'fore mornin' I tell ye it was a-humpin' things. We started with a pretty decent set o' sails, new eyelets rove in and new clew lines, but, Lord love ye, we hadn't taken old Hatteras into consideration. Bill Nevins, my engineer, and a landsman who was to work the h'istin' engine, looked kind 'er peaked when what was left of the jib come rattlin' down on his fo'c's'le hatch, but I says to him, 'the Screamer's all right, Billy, so she don't strike nothin' and so long's we can keep the water out 'er. Can't sink 'er any more'n an empty five-gallon ker'sene can with the cork in. We'll lay 'round here till mornin' and then set a signal. Something'll come along pretty soon.' Sure 'nough, 'long come a coaler bound for Charleston. She see us a-wallowin' in the trough and our mast thrashin' for all it was worth.
"'What d'ye want?' the skipper says, when he got within hail.
"'Some sail-needles and a ball o' twine,' I hollered back; 'we got everything else.' You should just a-heard him cuss—" and one of Captain Bob's laughs rang through the room. "Them's two things I'd forgot—didn't think o' them in fact till the mainsheet give 'way.
"Well, he chucked 'em aboard with another cuss. I hadn't no money to pay no salvage. All we wanted was them needles and a little elbow-grease and gumption. So we started in, and 'fore night, she still a-thrashin', I'd fixed up the sails, patched the eyelets with a pair o' boot-legs, and was off again."
"What were you doing off Hatteras, Captain Bob?" I asked. I was leading him on, professing ignorance of minor details, so that I could again enjoy the delight of hearing him tell it.
"Oh, that was another one o' them crazy jobs I used to take when I didn't know no better. Why, I guess you remember 'bout that wreckin' job off Hamilton, Bermuda?"
He was settled in his chair now, his legs crossed, his head down between his shoulders.