The Parson, by way, he said, of utilising his moments, was preparing for fishing—calculating, and rightly too, that the whiting would congregate under the lee of the stranded ship.
He had made his preparations with characteristic attention to his own comfort and convenience. The dingy, which was hanging at the stern davits, formed at once his seat and his fishing-basket; and as he had eased off as much of the lee tackle fall as brought the boat to an even keel, the taffrail itself afforded him a shelter from the wind, which was now getting high enough to be unpleasant.
There he sat, hour after hour, busily and very profitably employed, heeding the gradual advance and strengthening of the tide only so far as its increasing current required the use of heavier leads.
The Captain and Birger had been trying to walk the sloping deck, a pursuit of pedestrianism under difficulties, for it was very much as if they had been trying to walk along the roof of a house. Time hangs heavily on the hands of those who have nothing to do, and there was nothing to do by the most active of sailors beyond hoisting the ensign union downwards, and that might just as well have been left undone too, for all the notice that was taken of it. Ship after ship passed by—the foreign traders to windward, the English through the shorter but more dangerous channel that lay between them and the main land. Many of them were quite near enough for anxious passengers to make out the people in them reconnoitring the position of the unfortunate Walrus through their telescopes. But if they did look on her, certainly they passed by on the other side; it never seemed to enter into the heads of one of them to afford assistance.
“Pleasant,” said Birger, “very. Is this the way your sailors help one another in distress?”
“I am afraid so,” said the Captain.
“Gayer insects fluttering by
Ne’er droop the wing o’er those that die;
And English tars have pity shown
For every failure but their own.”