The wrecking tug, under full steam, came alongside, and the safe was slung carefully over to her deck, where it was bolted down and made as fast as a sailor could make it. I put a metal line about it, and sealed it up, not even willing to trust to the safe combination that had withstood the blasts and the sea.
"Good-by, and a pleasant voyage to the Cape for you," I said to my former shipmates. They steamed away to the southward to lay the old ship up for repairs, and we, in the mighty wrecker, Viking, under full power and making fifteen knots the hour, stood back for old England, where we arrived safe enough a short time later.
A TWO-STRANDED YARN
PART I.
"Captain Gantline?" The words escaped me like a shot from a gun.
"Sure as eggs—'n where did you come from?" said that stout seaman. He stood at the bar of Bill's place on Telegraph Hill, drinking rum. His eyes, crinkled up at the corners like the ripples of a ship's cutwater in a smooth sea, were bloodshot and liquor-soaked. Old man Gantline was broad of beam and shorter than myself—no real good seaman is tall—and he raised his empty glass and hammered upon the bar with it.
"Gimme another drink," said he to the barkeeper. Then he turned to me. "So it's you fer sure, old man—well, well, what a small world it is, after all! Take a nip—I'm sure glad to see you—an' how'd it happen?"
I saw that old Gantline was getting drunk. It was a shame. The old skipper was a crack packet skipper. I was amazed at him, for he was not a drinking man. I wondered what made him do it. The barkeeper was now opening another bottle, and I knew the old sailor had drunk much.
"I blew in from New York around the Cape last week," I said.