Old Masters was away aft on the poop hauling in the patent log, which had been hove over the side on our beginning the run, and the next minute, as soon as he was able to look at the index of the instrument, he answered the skipper’s question.
“Sixteen knots, sir!” he sang out, and then we could hear the old sea dog add his customary comment, whether of approval or discontent, “Well, I’m blowed!”
“By George, colonel!” cried Captain Applegarth to our melancholy-looking guest at his side. “We’re going sixteen knots, sir; just think of that! I didn’t believe the dear old barquey had it in her!”
“It is a good, wonderful speed, captain,” replied the other, who, I noticed, was looking even more exhausted now than when we removed him from the boat. “Remember, though, sir, the Saint Pierre is sailing on all this time before the wind, as she was this morning and must be miles ahead of us!”
“Aye, I know she’s going; or at least, I suppose so, and I’ve made every allowance for that in my calculation of her whereabouts,” returned our skipper, in nowise daunted by the colonel’s argument. “But if she had every rag set that she could carry, she couldn’t go more than three or four knots at the most, in this light breeze; and for every foot she covers we’re going five!”
“That is true,” said the American, with a very weary and absent look on his face. “But—but I’m afraid we may be too late after all! I—I’m—God protect—my—my—”
“The fact is, my dear sir,” cried the skipper abruptly, interrupting him as the other hesitated in his speech, turning a deadly white and clutching at the bridge rail in front of him, as if to save himself from falling or fainting. “You’re completely worn out and your nerves shaken! Why, you can’t have had much, if any, sleep the last three or four days—not since that rumpus broke out aboard your ship, eh?”
“Heavens!” ejaculated the other. “I don’t think I have closed my eyes, señor, since Friday, excepting when I was drifting in the boat, part of which time I must have been senseless; for though I recollect seeing your vessel and trying to signal her by holding up a piece of the bottom planking of the boat, as we hadn’t oar or sail in her, I have no remembrance of seeing your vessel steaming up to help us, or of this brave young gentleman here jumping into the water and swimming to our assistance, as you tell me, captain, that he gallantly did. Believe me, sir, I shall never forget you, and I shall be ever and eternally grateful to you for that noble act of yours!”
He half-turned and bowed to me politely as he said this, but I was too much confused by his exaggerated estimate of what I had done to say anything at the moment in reply. And, after all, it was only a very simple thing to do, to swim with a line to a boat; any other fellow could have done the same, and would have done it under the same circumstances.
The skipper, however, spoke for me.