"Holy Mother," said Mike, "and I'm not drowned this trip!"
The boat was hauled on board, and when the skipper's foot touched the deck he reeled. Humphries caught him.
"Oh, steady, sir," said Humphries, as Mike came up to them.
The captain stared at him, for he did not remember striking him.
"It's the brrave man you are," said Mike simply; "and you're the firrst man that I've tuk a blow from since I was the length of my arm. Oh, bhoys, it's the brrave man the skipper is."
The second mate pushed him away, and he went like a child and lent a hand to help the poor 'divils of Dagoes,' as he called those who had been saved. The mate came and shook hands with the captain. The tears ran down Wardle's hairy face, and he could not speak.
"I shall have another pair of binoculars over this," said Captain Amos Brown with quivering lips.
"You are a hero," bawled the mate as the wind roared again in a blinding squall with rain in it. The skipper flushed.
"Oh, it's nothin', this," he said. "Now in the Bay of Bengal——"
The wind took that story to loo'ard, and no one heard it. But they heard him wind up with 'gold-mounted binoculars.'