"I warn't asleep, sir; stri'my blind if I was," he began as he came up to the berg.
"Dry up and say nothin'," said Spink. "If you wake anyone I'll see you don't sleep again for a week. Hand up some of that truck and get the stern sheets clear, I want to get in myself."
There was more than a chance of not finding the derelict and of losing the iceberg, and Spink knew it. Just as he was about to chance it he remembered that he had a couple of balls of strong twine in the bag into which he had dumped all his belongings, including the precious ship's papers, when he left the Swan. As he recalled this lucky fact a heavenly smile overspread his handsome features.
"It's a splendid notion," said Spink. "I feel as proud of it as a dog with two tails! I wish those chaps at the Foreign Office were here now; they would enjoy it better than a play."
He stepped to his bag as lightly as a Polar bear after a sleeping seal, and when he found the twine he tied the end of it to Ward's leg.
"Ward at one end and Providence at the other," said Spink with a grin. "Oh, won't he be surprised!"
And the skipper went back to the boat, paying out the twine as he went. He was chuckling in the merriest way, and poor Lim'us, who was cold, and very sick of the whole affair, thought that the strain had been too much for him.
"'E's balmy on the crumpet, that's what's the matter wiv 'im," said Lim'us as he obeyed orders reluctantly, and pulled into the solid fog with a mad and grinning skipper, who would probably scupper him as soon as they were out of earshot of the crew.
"I wish I was in Lim'us," said he. "I'd give all my wyges to see Commercial Rowd agin."
And still Spink chuckled and paid out the twine, until suddenly the boat ran into a still deeper darkness.