“Do people that get drownd-ed feel much pain?”
“Oh! How very wicked!” exclaimed Carolyn May, her mind led somewhat away from the gruesome question she had propounded to Benjamin.
“’Twas that, indeed,” agreed the sailor, puffing on his pipe. “The old Paducah sometimes rolled through the wash like she was top-heavy. And if the swell got too strong for her we had to jettison the top tiers of cotton bales—pitch ’em overboard, you see.”
“Oh!”
“An’ one day, when the old craft was rollin’ till her yards nigh touched the sea, I was loosin’ the upper tier of bales and slidin’ ’em overboard, when over I went with one of ’em.”
“Oh, Benjamin! Never!”
“Aye, aye, matey. That’s what I done,” said the old man, sucking away on his pipe. “There was me in the sea, hangin’ on to a balehook that was stuck in the cotton. The old Paducah rushed by me, it seemed, like an express train past a cripple.”
“But you weren’t drownd-ed!” exclaimed Carolyn May.