“Yes, sir, I’m very sorry,” I said; then, anxiously, “But you are sure you are not hurt, sir?”
“Tut, tut! I told you no, boy. There, there, I don’t mean that. Not even scratched, Mr Herrick. You can go to your messmates now with an adventure to tell them,” he added, smiling; “only don’t dress it up into a highly-coloured story, about how your superior officer relaxed the strict rules of dishipline; do you hear?”
“Yes, sir, I hear,” I said, and I left him going to join the captain, while I went down and told Barkins what had been going on, but I had not been talking to him five minutes before I heard a heavy splash as if something had been thrown over the side.
“What’s that?” said Barkins, turning pale.
I did not answer.
“Sounds like burying some one,” he whispered. “Don’t say poor old Blacksmith has gone?”
“No no,” I said. “I know what it is. Wait till I’ve told you all I have to tell, and then you’ll know too.”
He looked at me wonderingly, and I completed my account of the scene in the black-hole place.
“Oh, I see,” he cried; “it was the Chinaman?”
I nodded carelessly, but I felt more serious than ever before in my life, at this horrible sequel to a fearful scene.