(Both these adventures are sketched from the life.)
When safe to bank, and when he noticed the manner in which he had been helped out, poor Allan felt sick, there is no other name for it.
“Oh, Ralph, Ralph!” he said, clutching his friend by the shoulder to keep himself from falling, “what if I had killed you?”
When told of the incident that evening after dinner, McBain, after a momentary silence, said quietly,—
“I’m not sorry such a thing should have happened, boys; it ought to teach you caution; and it teaches us all that there is Some One in whose hands we are; Some One to look after us even in moments of extremest peril.”
But I think Allan loved Ralph even better after this.
Two weeks’ constant sealing; two weeks during which the crews of the Arrandoon and Canny Scotia never sat down to a regular meal, and never lay down for two consecutive hours of repose, only eating when hungry and sleeping when they could no longer keep moving; two weeks during which nobody knew what o’clock it was at any particular time, or which was east or west, or whether it were day or night. Two weeks, then the seals on the ice disappeared as if by magic, for the frost was coming.
“Let them go,” said Silas, shaking McBain warmly by the hand. “Thanks to you, sir, I’m a bumper ship. Why, man, I’m full to the hatches. Low freeboard and all that sort of thing. Plimsoll wouldn’t pass us out of any British harbour. But, with fair weather and God’s help, sir, we’ll get safely home.”
“And now,” McBain replied, “there isn’t a moment to lose. We must get out of here, Captain Grig, or the frost will serve us a trick as it did before.”