“Ah! there is a movement—voices—I hear them calling for a crowbar—The bulkhead cracks as they pry off the planking. They have seen the leak—they are trying to get at it!—Good God! why do they not first dampen the fire?—Why do they call for the—the—
“Stranger, look at that finger! it can never regain its natural size—but it has already done all the service that man could expect from so humble a member—Sir, that hole would have been plugged up on the instant, unless I had jammed my finger through!
“I heard the cry of horror as they saw it without—the shout to drown the fire—the first stroke of the cold water pump. They say, too, that I was conscious when they took me out—but I—I remember nothing more till they brought a julep to my bed-side arterwards, And that julep!—”
“Cooling! was it?”
“Strannger!!!”
Ben turned away his head and wept—He could no more.
| [1] | The name “Missouri” is thus generally pronounced upon the western waters. |