“Can nothing be done?” Mr Vallance—for that was his name—shouted in my ear.
“Well,” I said, shouting again, “if I was captain, I should run all risks, and get some of that iron over the side.”
“Why don’t he do it, then?” he exclaimed; and of course, being nobody on board that ship, I could only shake my head.
Just then Mrs Vallance turned upon me such a pitiful look, as she took tighter hold of her husband—a look that seemed to say to me: “Oh, save him, save him!” And I don’t know how it was, but feeling that something ought to be done, I crept along once more to the captain’s cabin, and going down, there, in the dim light, I could see him sitting on a locker, with a bottle in his hand, and a horrible wild stupid look on his face, which told me in a moment that he wasn’t a fit man to have been trusted with the lives of forty people in a good new ship. Then I stood half-bewildered for a few moments, but directly after I was up on deck, and alongside of Mr Vallance.
“Will you stand by me, sir,” I says, “if I’m took to task for what I do?”
“What are you going to do?” he says.
“Shy that iron over the side.”
“To the death, my man!”
“Then lash her fast where she is,” I said, nodding to Mrs Vallance; “and, in God’s name, come on.”
I saw the poor thing’s arms go tight round his neck, and though I couldn’t hear a word she said, I knew it meant: “Don’t leave me;” but he just pointed upwards a moment, kissed her tenderly; and then, I helping, we made her fast, and the next minute were alongside the hatches, just over where I knew the great pillars to be.