“But he looks so ill, sir,” I said, quite ignoring the rope’s-ending.
“Of course he does, my lad. So would you if you had gone down as far as he did, and swallowed as much water. Easy. In oars.”
I did not know we had rowed so far, but just then the boat bumped up against the side of the lugger, and old Jonas rose, took the painter as he stepped into the bows, and handed it to Binnacle Bill, whose grim old face relaxed into a grin as he saw our plight.
“What have you got, Master Uggles’on?” he said. “White seals?”
“Ay, something o’ the sort,” grumbled old Jonas. “Here, boys, on board with you.”
We needed no second order, but scrambled over the side into the lugger, while, at a word from his master, Binnacle Bill unbolted the piece of the lugger’s bulwarks that answered the purpose of a gangway, and as, by main force, old Jonas lifted up Bigley, the old sailor leaned down, put his arm round the poor limp fellow, and lifted him on deck, where he lay almost without motion.
The next thing was to make fast the little boat astern, after which Binnacle Bill seized the tiller, the sails filled, and the boat began to glide through the sunny sea, while Bob and I picked out the sunniest spot we could find, and watched old Jonas as he bent over Bigley and poured a few drops of spirit between his teeth from a bottle he had fetched from the little cabin.
“Rowing’s put you two right,” said Jonas. “Ah, I thought that would do him good.”
Certainly it did, for in a few minutes’ time Bigley was able to sit up in an oil-skin coat of his father’s, while we two were accommodated with a couple of Jersey shirts, which when worn as the only garment are nice and warm, but anything but becoming.
The little lugger tacked and tacked again before we could make the mouth of the Gap; and, probably because he was too busy over Bigley and the boat, old Jonas said no more about the rope’s end, but ran us right in over the pebble bar into the little river, when Binnacle Bill was sent over to our cottage to fetch some clothes for me and Bob, he being about my size, and till they came we lay in old Jonas’s bed.