He placed his water bottle in the young man’s hand and watched him.
“No; dead man couldn’t drink that how,” he said softly. “Go it, sir; I’ll fill it up again. Take a reg’lar good deep swig. Fine stuff, water, when you’re thirsty, so long as it aren’t hot water, and all bitter and salt. Go it again, sir,” he cried, as his rugged face softened into a weak grin of satisfaction. “Ahoy-a! Ahoy! This way.”
This last was a tremendous roar through his hands, sent in the direction of the forest below, and as soon as it was answered, the man turned again to Lane.
“Only to think on it being me as found yer, sir. I do call it luck. I come out o’ the wood, and I says to myself, ‘I shouldn’t wonder, Billy, old man, if Muster Lane’s over yonder, among them rocks, for it’s just the sorter place to make a roost on,’ and I come along, and see yer fast asleep, and here yer are, sir, not a bit dead, are yer?”
“No, no, I’m all right, Wriggs, only so stiff, I can hardly move.”
“Course yer are, sir. But never you mind about that. You wait till Tommy Smith comes up, and us two’ll give yer a real ’poo, sir—none of yer sham ’uns—and make yer jyntes as lissom as injy rubber. Why, sir, we begun to think you was a goner. How did yer get here?”
“Tell me first how you got here.”
“That’s me as will, sir,” cried the man with alacrity, as he keenly watched Lane’s efforts to rise, and lent him a hand. “Yer see, we couldn’t get through that steam as runs all along across the low land.”
“Was any one the worse for getting through?” cried Lane, eagerly, and Billy Wriggs scratched his ear.
“Well, sir, yer see, none on us weren’t none the wuss for getting through, ’cause we didn’t get through; but lots on us was all the wuss for not getting through. My heye! Talk about too much grog when yer ashore, it’s nothing to it. It’s the tipsyest stuff I ever swallowed. How did you manage, sir?”