“‘They’s lakes o’ fire in hell t’ sail for such as Skipper Jim!’
you sung? Lord! sir, I’m thinkin’ I’ll have t’ ship along o’ Skipper Jim once more!“
“No, no, lad!” cried Skipper Billy, speaking from the heart. “For you was willin’ t’ die right. But God help Jagger on the mornin’ o’ the Judgment Day! I’ll be waitin’ at the foot o’ the throne o’ God t’ charge un with the death o’ my wee kid!”
Doctor Luke sat there frowning.
XXVI
DECOYED
Despite Skipper Billy’s anxious, laughing protest that ’twas not yet fit weather to be at sea, the doctor next day ordered the sail set: for, as he said, he was all of a maddening itch to be about certain business, of a professional and official turn, at our harbour and Wayfarer’s Tickle, and could no longer wait the pleasure of a damned obstinate nor’east gale—a shocking way to put it, indeed, but vastly amusing when uttered with a fleeting twinkle of the eye: vastly convincing, too, followed by a snap of the teeth and the gleam of some high, heroic purpose. So we managed to get the able little Greased Lightning into the thick of it—merrily into the howl and gray frown of that ill-minded sea—and, though wind and sea, taking themselves seriously, conspired to smother her, we made jolly reaches to the nor’ard, albeit under double reefs, and came that night to Poor Luck Harbour, where the doctor’s sloop was waiting. There we bade good-bye to the mood-stricken Docks, and a short farewell to Skipper Billy, who must return into the service of the Government doctors from St. Johns, now, at last, active in the smallpox ports. And next morning, the wind having somewhat abated in the night, the doctor and I set sail for our harbour, where, two days later, with the gale promising to renew itself, we dropped anchor: my dear sister, who had kept watch from her window, now waiting on my father’s wharf.