“‘Is you gone an’ forgot,’ says I, ‘about Jagger?’
“‘Never you mind about Jagger, Docks,’ says he. ‘I’ll see him,’ says he, ‘later. Call the hands,’ says he, ‘an’ we’ll wreck her like men!’”
Docks covered his face with his hands. Place was once more given to the noises of the gale. He looked up—broken, listless; possessed again by the mood of that time.
“An’ what did you say, lad?” Skipper Billy whispered.
“I hadn’t no objection,” sighed the lad.
The answer was sufficient.
“So I called the hands,” Docks went on. “An’ when the second hand cotched sight o’ the rocks we was bound for, he went mad, an’ tumbled over the taffrail; an’ the cook was so weak a lurch o’ the ship flung him after the second hand afore we reached the breakers. I never seed Skipper Jim no more; nor the cook, nor the second hand, nor poor Tommy Mib. But I’m glad the Lord God A’mighty give Jim the chance t’ die right, though he’d lived wrong. Oh, ay! I’m fair glad the good Lord done that. The Labradormen give us a cheer when the chain went rattlin’ over an’ the Sink or Swim gathered way—a cheer, sir, that beat its way agin the wind—God bless them!—an’ made me feel that in the end I was a man agin. She went t’ pieces when she struck,” he added, as if in afterthought; “but I’m something of a hand at swimmin’, an’ I got ashore on a bit o’ spar. An’ then I come down the coast ’til I found you lyin’ here in the lee o’ Saul’s Island.” After a pause, he said hoarsely, to Skipper Billy: “They had the smallpox at Tops’l Cove, says you? They got it yet at Smith’s Arm? At Harbour Rim an’ Highwater Cove they been dyin’? How did they die at Seldom Cove? Like flies, says you? An’ one was a kid?”
“My kid,” said Skipper Billy, quietly still.
“My God!” cried Docks. “His kid! How does that there song go? What about they lakes o’ fire? Wasn’t it,