“It’s all about variation now. He’s always trying to work off new-fangled notions on me. When I first began coming around this way the drift was good enough to figure by.”
“But hasn’t it been proved?”
“Proved nothing. How’s a man going to prove he’s steering north when he’s heading nor’west in a three-knot drift with nothing to get a bearing on? I’ll allow there’s some variation in a compass, but nothing like that. Besides, he does other unreasonable things. There’s no reason in him.”
“Well, I suppose it is hard to get along with unreasonable people,” said the minister; “but there are some things we know are true without being able to reason about them. For instance——”
“No, sir,” interrupted Garnett. “There ain’t anything we know about anything unless we can reason it out. You have your ideas and I have mine; that’s all there is to it.”
“Fore-staysail!” bawled the skipper from the wheel, and that piece of canvas was run up, quickly followed by the trysail on the spanker-boom. Dr. Davis, left alone, started aft. He went safely along until he reached the middle of the poop, when a heavy sea struck the vessel and made her heel quickly to leeward. The minister tried to seize the rail, but missed it, and the next instant fell headlong into the seething water alongside.
Garnett was not ten feet distant working at the trysail, and without a moment’s hesitation he seized a downhaul and plunged overboard with the line about him.
The passenger arose with a look of peaceful resignation on his face which contrasted strongly with the old mate’s fierce expression of determination. As the vessel was making no headway against the sea it was less difficult than it appeared to seize the drowning man and give the signal to haul away.
In another minute Garnett was on deck again with Dr. Davis, neither of them much the worse for their bath. The cold, however, made it necessary for them to change their clothes.
The gale held on all day, but nothing unusual occurred. At eight bells that evening Dr. Davis had recovered sufficiently to again venture on deck. It was Gantline’s dog-watch, but as there was as much light as there had been during the day, Dr. Davis kept him company.