“Eh?” said the man, feebly. “No, sir, I arn’t; ’strue as goodness I arn’t.”
“But you are,” cried Aleck, angrily, as he now grasped the full misfortune to his boat—not the very full, for he was not aware of the hole in her bottom. “Your fingers are clasped tightly round the rope.”
“Are they, sir?”
“Yes.”
“’Tarn’t my doing then, sir. I hoped and prayed as they might hold on to the last, and I s’pose that’s how it is. Ah–h!”
He uttered a low groan, his eyelids dropped, and his fingers suddenly became inert, while it needed all the lad’s strength to keep the poor fellow from slipping off the wet steps into the deep water of the harbour.
“Tom,” he shouted; “rouse up, lad. Do you hear?” he cried, frantically, as he held the man erect, and then in obedience to a sudden flash of thought forced him back into a sitting position on one of the steps.
“Hah!” he panted. “I couldn’t have held you much longer. Hold up, man. Can’t you hear what I say?”
“Eh? Yes, Master Aleck, on’y don’t talk so far off like, and—and—tell ’em to leave off ringing them bells in my ears.”
Coupled with the loss of the boat, Aleck’s first thought was that the man had been indulging in a sailor’s weakness and was the worse for rum; but a second glance at the ghastly face below him opened the lad’s eyes to the simple truth, and he spoke more gently: