“It’s no language that I can recognise,” he said after a pause, as if thinking over all the dialects he had ever come across in his wanderings. “The poor chap has evidently gone mad and is jabbering some gibberish or other. Look how his eyes are rolling!”
By this time, however, I had managed to come up to where Mr Jellaby and the doctor were holding on to the backstay, and as the wind just then dropped for an instant and the deafening din of the clashing waters ceased, I caught a word or two out of a long sentence which the unfortunate man screamed out at the moment at the top of his voice.
“He’s talking Spanish, sir!” I exclaimed, much to the surprise of my seniors. “I can make out something that sounds like ‘por Dios,’ which means ‘for the love of God,’ sir.”
“Indeed!” said Mr Jellaby, gripping hold of one of the clewlines which hung down from the broken yard and swayed about in the wind, preparing to swing himself across the encumbered deck to the port shrouds beyond, where the man was lashed. “I didn’t know you were so good a linguist, young Vernon. By Jove, you’ll be of more use than I thought you would be when the commander told me to take you with me.”
“Oh!” I cried, rather shamefaced at this, “I only know a little of the language. I learnt it when I was in the West Indies with my father. We lived in one of the islands where there were a lot of Spaniards, and I heard their lingo spoken often enough.”
“Well, anyway, it’s lucky that you know something about it now, for you can keep your ears cocked and hear what the poor beggar says, while we try to release him from his uncomfortable billet. Here, Bates, bear a hand!”
So saying, Mr Jellaby swung himself across the frothing chasm that lay between him and the object of his pity, with the coxswain of the cutter after him, while Dr Nettleby and I remained by the mainmast bitts, Corporal Macan busying himself in getting the doctor’s medical traps ready for immediate use.
I soon had to exercise my new office of interpreter, for the man began shouting again on seeing Mr Jellaby and the coxswain near him.
“Ah del buque!” he screamed out, holding up, as if to signal with it, one of his emaciated hands, the bony fingers of which looked like those of a skeleton.
“Como se llama el buque?”