There he found Scott Clemmons, who had returned to consciousness, with a gash upon his head, skillfully dressed, and his left arm bound close to his side, for his collar-bone was broken.
“Ah, Merrill, I wish to say that your plucky act saved Clemmons, for he was stunned by the blow on the head, and his collar-bone is fractured. He wishes to see you.”
Mark’s hand had been warmly grasped by the ship’s surgeon as he spoke, and now he stepped toward Scott Clemmons.
“Say, old fellow, you did a manly thing, they tell me, and I owe you my life. We haven’t been exactly chummy in the past, but, of course, now you’ll believe in my friendship for you?”
Mark Merrill would have given much could he have escaped the thanks of Scott Clemmons.
He could understand how much it cost him of pain and humiliation to say what he did.
But he said:
“Oh, we are good enough friends, Mr. Clemmons, and what I did for you I would have done for any one else, and you know I don’t mind a ducking and a swim even in the sea.”
“I don’t recall any of it except that I lost my hold and felt the dull thud as I struck the yard; but they say you leaped from aloft and kept me afloat until the lifeboat picked us up. Now I’m laid up in ordinary for a few weeks, so come in and see me often.”
“You’ll be all right soon, Clemmons, and now you need sleep, as the doctor will tell you,” and Mark Merrill turned away and went to swing his hammock, get on a dry rig, and turn in, for his struggle with the sea even his iron frame could not help but feel.