After a time they roused themselves from their grief and looked about for Hannah. They found her. She lay among the sand and seaweed, her fair hair soaked in gasoline. Then they looked about for Oyster McShamus. Him, too, they found, lying half buried in the grass and soaked in whisky. Then they looked about for Ellen. They found her lying across the door of the cottage half buried in Jamie’s breeches.
Then they gathered them up. Life was not extinct. They chafed their hands. They rubbed their feet. They put hot bricks upon their stomachs. They poured hot whisky down their throats. That brought them to.
Of course.
It always does.
They all lived.
But the feud was done for. That was the end of it. Hannah had put it to the bad.
VIII.
Soaked in Seaweed:
or, Upset in the Ocean
(An Old-fashioned Sea Story.)
It was in August in 1867 that I stepped on board the deck of the Saucy Sally, lying in dock at Gravesend, to fill the berth of second mate.
Let me first say a word about myself.