“I’m very, very sorry, Mr Handscombe,” whispered Steve, as the captain walked away. “I didn’t mean to treat it lightly, only to look as if I were not a coward.”
“Yes, yes, I understand, my lad,” was the reply; “but it is a lesson to you. I wouldn’t go through those moments again for a thousand pounds. Why, Steve, my lad, I saw, as if in a flash, a funeral at sea, our trip at an end, and poor Captain Marsham going back feeling that he was to blame for your death.”
“Oh, I say, Mr Handscombe, don’t talk like that!” whispered Steve. “Was it really so bad?”
“Bad, sir! Why, what do you think you are made of—india-rubber? Did you suppose that you would drop on to the deck and bounce up again, to come down then on your feet and strike an attitude like a clown in a pantomime? I haven’t patience with you!”
“I’m very sorry, sir, really,” said Steve again.
“Not half so sorry as we should have been,” said the doctor testily. “But there, I don’t know; it would have been a good riddance. Boys are more bother than they are worth, especially consequential and conceited boys, like you are. Hullo! what are you putting your hand there for? Not hurt?”
“I—I don’t know,” said Steve, pressing both hands to his side. “Yes, I do; it hurts horribly.”
“But you didn’t fall.”
“No; Johannes struck me there, and gripped the flesh. Feels as if he had broken my ribs.”
“How do you know, sir? You never had any ribs broken, did you?”