“First-rate,” said he. “And you?”
“Oh, I’m all right. But your leg, Dave, is it better?”
“To tell you the truth,” answered he with a hearty laugh, “I forgot all about it. It’s quite well now—look! and that black and blue appearance it had has disappeared. I don’t feel the slightest pain, so it must be all right.”
The attendant, seeing both the lads better and able to move about, here brought them each a mess of something nice to eat, which they polished off in so hearty a manner as to make him smile, and exclaim, “Sehr gut!” with much satisfaction to himself; and he then handed the boys their clothes, which had been carefully dried and smoothed, and assisted them to dress.
“I wish,” said David, as he completed his toilet by pulling on a pair of Hessian boots, that the man brought him in place of the solitary one which he remembered having on in the boat, “I wish we had been picked up by an English ship, although these chaps have been very kind, of course, and beggars mustn’t be choosers. They are Germans, I suppose, eh? Do you know the lingo, Jonathan?”
“Yes, it’s a German ship, Die Ahnfrau,” replied his friend, likewise donning another pair of “loaned” boots, and accepting a cap, which the attendant produced with a bow. “How polite this chap is, Dave! I’m sorry I only know one or two words of the language, or I would thank him, and get out all the information I could about the vessel, and how they picked us up.”
“Oh we’ll find that out somehow,” said David carelessly, “all in good time, old fellow.” And the man at that moment tapping him on the arm, and making a motion that he should follow him, he and Jonathan went after him up the companion-stairs, from the cabin in which they were, on to the upper deck.
They were in a large barque, as they could see, under full sail, with royals, staysails, stunsails, and everything that could draw, set; but they had not much time given them for observation.
“Wie heissen Sie?” said a short, stout man in spectacles, speaking in a sharp imperative voice. He had a very broad gold band on his cap, and the boys took him for the captain of the vessel, as indeed he was. He specially seemed to address Jonathan, as the attendant who had escorted them on deck took them up to him, where he was standing by the binnacle with two or three others.
“John Liston,” answered that worthy, speaking almost involuntarily, as the phrase the captain used, asking his name, was one of the few German ones with which he was acquainted.