‘You seem resolved that I shall believe in ghosts, Muffin,’ said I; ‘and pray how came you to learn that I was saved from the wreck, that I had returned to England, was here in these lodgings, in short, where I only arrived yesterday?’
‘Sir Wilfrid received a letter from his solicitors this morning, sir, enclosing your letter to them.’
‘Sir Wilfrid!’ I shouted; ‘is he alive?’
‘Oh yes, sir, and very much better both in body and mind, I’m ’appy to say, sir. He would have called on you himself, sir, but he’s suffering from an attack of gout in his left foot, and has been obliged to keep his bed for two days.’
I jumped from my chair and fell to pacing the room to work off by locomotion something of the amazement that threatened to addle my brains.
‘Wilfrid alive!’ I muttered. ‘What will Laura say to all this? Muffin,’ I cried, rounding upon him, ‘what you are telling me is a miracle! a thing beyond all credibility. Why, we saw the yacht go to pieces! nearly the whole mass of her in fragments came ashore, along with four or five dead bodies. How, in heaven’s name, did Sir Wilfrid escape?’
He responded by telling me the story. Johnson, the man who had died upon the island, was perfectly right in saying that he believed a number of men had rushed to one of the boats shortly after the yacht had struck. I myself remember being felled by a gang of people flying aft in the blackness. Muffin was one of them. The white water over the side enabled them to see what they were about. The boat, a noble structure, of a lifeboat’s quality of buoyancy, was successfully lowered, seven men got into her, one of whom was Muffin. The yacht was then fast breaking up. The men, to escape being pounded to pieces by the battering rams of the wreckage hurled on every curl of sea, headed out from the island, straining their hearts at the oars; but they were again and again beaten back. There were but five oars, and Muffin and one of the seamen having nothing to do sat crouching in the stern-sheets. Suddenly a figure showed close alongside crying loudly for help; Muffin grasped him by the hair of his head, the other fellow leaned over, and between them they dragged the man in. It was my cousin! By dint of sustained and mad plying of oars they drew the boat clear of the wreckage, bringing the white line of the thunderous surf on the island beach upon their quarter; they then gave the stern of the little fabric to the wind and seas and fled forwards like smoke, and when the dawn broke they were miles out of sight of the rock. A day and a night of dead calm followed; they were without food or water, and their outlook was horrible; but at sunrise on the third day they spied the gleam of a sail, towards which they rowed, and before the darkness fell they were safely on board a large English brig bound to Bristol.
Such was Muffin’s story. He said that Sir Wilfrid, on being told it was Muffin who had rescued him, promised to take him back into his service on reaching England. He added that my cousin had entirely lost the craze that had possessed him concerning his bulk and stature. The yacht on going to pieces had liberated him, and with his sudden and startling enlargement his mad fancy entirely passed away. So that poor old Jacob Crimp came very near the truth when he had suggested to me that my cousin’s senses might be recovered by a great fright.
Muffin asked me the names of the others who were saved. I told him who they were.
‘And Mr. Cutbill wasn’t drowned, sir?’ said he.