“Sahib! I was overcome. I had watched so long. Two long weeks have we been in that boat. Water we had, but little food. That food I had brought myself for Missee. One man become touched of the finger of the gods and leaped overboard. The other desired the fragments of food which only remained for Her Innocence. I felt myself fast losing the thread of life. Then—the other man died.”
I knew what he meant. I understood how that man had been strangled by the lanyard around his neck that the food might be saved for the girl. I guess this strange man was pretty nearly a savage; but I believed then—and I believe now—that he had done right.
“I—Dao Singh—then fell asleep, Sahib. I believed it was to be my last sleep. But the Missee had her food and the water.”
“I see,” I said, for he spoke only to me, even ignoring Mr. Barney. “Now you will both be saved. Our ship is at hand.”
“It is well, Sahib,” he sighed. “Dao Singh—is the Sahib’s—servant—”
He fell back into the bottom of the boat and his eyes closed. I feared he had died then and there; but Mr. Barney bent over him, opened his shirt, felt of his heart, and then nodded to me with encouragement.
“He’s asleep,” he said. “Just done up—plucky brown devil. A Hindoo, I take it. These folks were from a British ship; but that boat had no name on her.”
Half an hour later we pulled under the Gullwing’s rail. All hands were there to eagerly welcome us. We caught the falls and they hauled us up to the davits, heavy as the boatload was.
As we swung inboard I leaped down to the deck, still bearing the unconscious girl in my arms.