Chapter Twenty.
“A Bit of a Blow!”
The doctor did not like the flippant way in which the lieutenant alluded to our providential escape.
“You ought to thank God, Mr Jellaby, with all your heart that you have not gone down in her,” he said in a grave and impressive tone, looking him full in the face. “It is far too serious a matter for you to speak of so lightly. Just think, man, we’ve only been saved by a hair’s-breadth from death!”
The lieutenant, however, was incorrigible.
“A miss is as good as a mile, doctor,” he rejoined with a laugh, which made all the boat’s crew grin in sympathy, his devil-may-care philosophy appealing more strongly to their sailor nature than the doctor’s moral reflections. “Stand by, bows!”
On this, the bowmen unshipped their oars with great care, so as not to cause any rocking; and, laying them in dexterously, faced round at the same time, one holding a boathook ready and the other the grapnel with a coil of rope attached, prepared to fling it when we were near enough to the ship.
Our gallant vessel was plunging along athwart our course as if she meant to give us the go-by, the sea foaming up at her bows in a big wave that curled up in front of her forefoot and broke over her figurehead as she dipped, sending the surf high in the air in a sheet of foam over her forecastle.
Those on board, though, had no intention of abandoning us, as we could quickly see, had we needed any assurance on the point.