“All ready, sir.”
“Steady, then; steady as you go. March!”
How steady they move! How quietly! A soldier’s funeral is nothing to it! How they rock, and how they sway, taking advantage of every seeming break in the ship’s motion, cautioning each other with uplifted fingers, the doctor with his left hand over the prize, the cook with his right, ready to clutch it if it moves, ready to fall with it if it falls.
Nearer and nearer they come. Nearer and nearer the great IT—the pudding—comes. And now it is almost alongside the captain and the expectant crew, when—oh moment of grief and horror!—the ship gives a fearful lurch, and the whole procession, pudding and all, is sent flying across the deck and brought up all of a heap close under the port bulwarks.
A groan of disappointment rises up from the table. The pudding is smashed to pieces, of course. No, for see—bravo! the doctor—he has clutched the trencher at a critical moment. Phoenix-like, he uprises with it from that chaos of arms and legs. He watches the chance. He gives one quick glance around him, at sea, at sky, at moving ship. He stakes his honour, his fame, and the very existence of that glorious globe of fragrant dough on one bold manoeuvre. Bearing it high over his head, he glides, he slides, he skates, one might say, towards the table; and in shorter time by far than it takes me to describe the gallant deed, he plumps the “great champion of the pudding race” down in front of the captain’s pile of plates.
“Hurrah! hurrah!”
Why, the very sharks deep down in the ocean’s blackest depths heard the shout; they took it for a battle-cry, and came surface-wards in all haste, making sure of a glorious feast. And an answering shout came up from the engine-room, where the stokers were at work. For they knew that the pudding was safely landed, and that their share would shortly come.
And the captain must needs shake the doctor by the hand, while tears of joy and admiration stood in his eyes.
“Doctor,” he said, “you’re a brick, sir, a brick and a half, sir. I never saw a bolder move. I never saw anything so pluckily done in my life before. I’m proud of my surgeon, proud of you.”
Then he sat down.