“A burning ship,” he said, “is no place, sir, to convey wounded men to, nor dead either. Place them in my boat, they will receive every attention on board our little craft. Meanwhile, you speed away to your ship, and presently we will follow you, bringing to your assistance all the men we can spare from the Snowbird.”
“God bless you, sir!” said the mate, much affected. “What a blessing that your vessel was here! It shows me that He has not altogether deserted us, bad though our fortunes have been.”
Out of the crew of the lost whale-boat, numbering eight in all, including the harpooner, the captain himself, and the coxswain, only three escaped intact, while three were killed outright, and the remaining two badly hurt, one having both bones of a leg broken, the other sustaining a grievous wound in the forearm. In solemn silence, and with all due respect, the captain and his two brave fellows who had lost their lives were laid side by side on the quarter-deck, and their bodies covered over with the Union Jack—the sailors’ pall, for surely it is meet and proper that the flag a man sails or fights under while alive shall cover his poor body when life has fled, and ere yet it is committed to the cold, dark, fathomless ocean.
The wounded men were carried below, and placed in comfortable cots between decks.
“I daresay,” said McBain, “my duty for a time will keep me here by these two poor fellows, though I would like to be hastening away to the assistance of that unhappy ship.”
“Nary a duty, sir,” said trapper Seth.
McBain looked up. Here was this tall, ungainly Yankee, with the lantern jaws and the iron fists, standing forth in quite a new light, namely, that of surgeon. He had stripped off coat and waistcoat and rolled up his sleeves. Beside him stood little Magnus, holding in his two hands a basin of warm water, in which a sponge floated, holding under his arm a bundle of hastily-manufactured bandages.
“Nary a duty!” repeated Seth. “I guess you’d better leave the wounded to the care of the two old ’uns here. Seth has done up more cuts and skivers in his time, than there are days in leap year. As for the broken leg, we’ll soon cooper that, won’t we, Magnus?”
“That will we!” Magnus replied, cheerfully.
Nothing loth to be relieved of a somewhat unpleasant duty, McBain at once called for volunteers, and was considerably surprised to be almost immediately surrounded by every man in the ship except the man at the wheel.