“What! no insurance?” gasped Wetherbee.
“No. When I left port last time my policy had run out, and I hadn’t a cent to pay for having it renewed. So, if the old brig’s bones whiten on that reef, poor Brandon will not get a cent.”
“If they do,” exclaimed the mate in wonder.
“Yes, if they do,” responded Captain Tarr, rising on his elbow and speaking lower, so that there could be no possibility of the man at the other end of the raft hearing his words; “for it’s my firm conviction, Caleb, that we’d done better to stick by the old Swan. This last storm drove hard from the west’ard. Suppose she’d slipped off again into deep water? She didn’t leak enough to keep her sweet, in spite of the terrific pounding she got from waves and rocks, and she might float for weeks—aye, for months—and you know she’d have plenty of company drifting up and down the Atlantic coast.”
“But that ain’t probable, cap’n, though I’ll grant ye that we might have done better by stickin’ by her a while longer.”
“Probable or not, Caleb, I feel that it is true. You know, they say a dying man can see some things plainer than other folks.”
Caleb was silenced by this, for he could not honestly aver that he did not believe his old commander to be near his end.
“And we had a valuable cargo, too, you know—very valuable,” murmured Captain Tarr. “I put every cent I received from the sale of the goods we took to Cape Town into this cargo, and would have cleared a handsome profit—enough to have kept both Brandon and me in good circumstances for a year. And then, there is something else.”
“Well, what is it?” Caleb asked, after taking a squint over the top of their breastwork to make sure that Leroyd had not ventured out.
“If I’d got home with the Silver Swan, Caleb, I should have been rich for life, and you, old trusty, should have had the brig just as she stood, for the cost of makin’ out the papers.”