“You alone are goot to me, lieber Herr,” said the poor fellow. “I know you cannot help me more, but how can I live it? I know that I shall perish before we get there! Ach, lieber Gott, vot become of my lieblinge! Aber des Himmels Wege; sind des Himmels Wege!”
At last the long voyage was nearly at an end. Cape Clear was in sight one night as I came up to take the watch at midnight, and a very pleasant sight it was to all of us. There was a stiff all-sail breeze from the southward, and we were laying our course fairly up channel. I was looking over the quarter-rail at the light, now well abeam, as Shang came aft and drew near me.
“Is it then true, mein Herr, as they say, that we are almost there?”
“Yes, Shang, we are now almost there. If this breeze holds we will be in Liverpool day after to-morrow. And then,” I added, as I saw how anxiously he listened to me, “you can ship as a landsman, perhaps, and get back to Lisbeth and little Greta.”
“Gott sei dank,” he murmured, as he reverently lifted his hat, “if they have but live all this time.”
I endeavored to reassure the poor fellow, and then, as the breeze was freshening, I took in the topgallant sails, and later, finding the wind still increasing, called Captain Gay, who ordered all hands called and a single reef put in the topsails.
The watch below tumbled up, the yards were clewed down, reef-tackles hauled out, and both watches went aloft to the fore-topsail. As my station as second mate was at the weather earing, I was, of course, first aloft, and had just passed my earing and sung out, “Haul out to leeward,” when I noticed, to my great surprise, that the man next inside of me on the yard was Shang, who usually on such occasions was discreetly found in the bunt.
“Why, Shang,” said I, “you are really getting to be a sailor.”
“Ach, mein Herr,” said he cheerfully, “ich bin so glücklich und so frölich, now that I am really so near there and that I shall so soon see Lisbeth”—
A strong gust of wind struck us; there was a vicious slat of the sail that sent the heavy canvas over our heads; the ship made a desperate roll and a plunge into the rising sea, and then, as we all clung closely for our lives, the sail bellied out and filled again,—but the man next me was gone from the yard!