“I arn’t drownded, sir; but I shall ketch cold if something arn’t done—my feet’s wet.”
“Yes, so velly wet,” cried a plaintive voice, and Ching struggled up from the bottom of the boat, and stood up, showing his blue cotton garments to be drenched with water.
“What, have we sprung a leak?” cried Mr Brooke.
“Yes, sir,” said Tom Jecks, “she’s got a hole in her skin here forrard; but if I might be so bold, sir, if you was to send Mr Ching to lean up agin it, we shouldn’t hurt much.”
“Pull—pull steady,” cried Mr Brooke. “Here, take the tiller, Mr Herrick.”
He laid his gun behind us and handed me the rudder, before going right forward to the coxswain, while I sat envying the men their coolness as they sat pulling away nonchalantly enough, though the water was rising fast and nearly covered their bare feet and ankles, while it soon invaded the grating upon which my own boot-covered feet were placed.
“Much injured, sir?” I shouted; and Mr Brooke gave me back poor Mercutio’s answer to his friend, in Romeo and Juliet—
“’Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door: but ’tis enough; ’twill serve.”
“Here, my lads, one of you; I must have a frock.”
“Right, sir, mine’ll do,” said the coxswain, unfastening and dragging his white duck garment over his head.