"Because I have none, except the lifeboat there. We lost the others in the storm. But it was little use my thinking of launching a heavy lifeboat when you were afloat there at hand."
"Well, well, it couldn't be helped," said Kinlay. "It was their own fault they were capsized, and there's no use talking. Put your helm to starboard, skipper, and let's get you into port."
"Is this man a pilot, Ericson?" asked Captain Gordon, turning to me.
"No," I said; "I believe he has not yet taken out his license. He started piloting two days since in opposition to my father."
Kinlay scowled almost savagely at me for saying this. But I knew very well that he was not a fully qualified pilot, whatever he might become, now that my father was drowned. He lost much of his swaggering manner, however, and was very quiet when Captain Gordon ordered him off the ship.
"Since that is so, then," said the captain, "you may leave this ship, and young Ericson will take us into the harbour. The lad may have no more claim to pilot us than yourself, but I doubt not he is quite as capable."
Kinlay walked across the quarterdeck at this dismissal, but as he put one leg over the gangway to get down to his boat, he said in a hoarse voice, and with a sly leer in his dark eye:
"I say, skipper, if ye're examined by the authorities, just say you gave every assistance--that ye hove ropes over--d'ye see? It's a very lamentable thing. But it was their own faults, their own faults."
"What d'ye mean?" said the captain. "I did heave ropes over, and I need tell no lies about it. I gave more assistance than you did, ye blackguard."
"Oh, very well, very well! I thought I'd just put you on your guard, d'ye see, in case you're examined."