I felt that we ought to have gone to them sooner, but I did not see how we could have acted differently; and eager now to bear the news of the change in the state of affairs, I trotted back with the lantern as fast as I could over the streaming deck, and found Barney sitting down and rubbing his legs.
“Circ’lation’s a-coming back, youngster,” he said. “I say, did you kill that young Walters?”
“Walters!” I cried. “I’d forgotten all about him. I didn’t see or hear anything of him.”
“Dessay not, sir. He’d get out of the way while the row was on. Maybe he’d got into a bunk to have a snooze and didn’t hear it. But, I say, what a game!”
“What, our re-taking the ship, Barney?”
“No; you thinking I was Frenchy. Well, it’s lucky you didn’t heave me overboard.”
“Coming round, mate?” said Bob Hampton.
“Ay, my lad, I’ve got one arm and a bit o’ one leg back, and toothers is coming back slowly like, but it’s rum work feeling nothing but head and body, and your arms and legs all gone dead at first, and then you begins to know as they arn’t been cut off and chucked away, and they’re still there. They was just like sleeves and stockings stuffed with sorduss, and people making cushions of ’em and sticking the pins in as hard as ever they can.”
“I’m so sorry, Barney,” I said.
“Ay, lad, I s’pose you are, and seeing as you thinked it was old Frenchy, I don’t wonder as you tied them there knots as hard as ever you could. But what I do wonder at is, that the line didn’t cut my legs right off. Shows as my muscles must be made of real good stuff, and when I’ve done rubbing ’em back into shape, I s’pose they’ll come all right once more; but I should have liked to be in the fun.”