“By the bye, Robert,” said Captain Staunton, “you have not yet told us how you came to break your leg. Did you strike it against the timber when you jumped overboard, or how was it?”
“No, sir,” said Bob. “It was this way. Just as I reached the end of the plank I caught sight of the brute rushing straight at May. I could see him distinctly against the clean sandy bottom, and he was not above six feet off. So I took a header right for him, whipping out my sheath-knife as I jumped; and luckily he turned upon me sharp enough to give little May a chance, but not sharp enough to prevent my driving my knife into him up to the hilt. Then I got hold of him somewhere—I think it was one of his fins—and dug and slashed at him until I was out of breath, when I was obliged to let go and come to the surface. The shark sheered off, seeming to have had enough of it, but in going he gave me a blow with his tail across the leg and I felt it snap like a pipe-stem.”
“And, instead of making for the raft, you swam at once to May, thinking of her safety rather than of the pain you were suffering,” said the skipper. “Bob, you are a hero, if ever there was one. This is the second time you have saved my child from certain death; and I shall never forget my obligations to you, though God alone knows whether I shall ever have an opportunity to repay them.”
“I say, mister, I wish you wouldn’t have quite so much to say about God; it makes a chap feel uncomfortable,” growled Dickinson.
“Does it?” said Captain Staunton. “How is that? I thought none of you people believed in the existence of such a Being.”
“I can’t answer for others,” sullenly returned Dickinson, “but I know I believe; I wish I didn’t. I’ve tried my hardest to forget all about God, and to persuade myself that there ain’t no such Person, but I can’t manage it. The remembrance of my poor old mother’s teaching sticks to me in spite of all I can do. I’ve tried,” he continued with growing passion, “to drive it all out of my head by sheer deviltry and wickedness; I’ve done worse things than e’er another man on this here island, hain’t I, mates?”—to his fellow-oarsmen.
“Ay ay, Bill, you have.”
“You’re a reg’lar devil sometimes.”
“A real out-and-outer, and no mistake,” were the confirmatory replies.
“Yes,” Dickinson continued, “and yet I can’t forget it; I can’t persuade myself; and the more I try the worse I feel about it, and I don’t care who hears me say so.”