“Mr. Anderson!” came a voice from the barque’s quarter-deck, “take the boat in tow and bring her alongside.”
They made the painter fast to their stern, lowered her sail, and started with their grim burden gliding after them. The voices of the men overhanging the vessel’s bulwarks rose in a low, deep hum, when the boat was near enough to enable them to see its contents again. The port gangway was unshipped, and some hands stood by with lines to hoist the bodies inboard.
“Do they live?” called out the skipper.
“They both seem dead, sir,” answered Anderson.
The boat was now brought right under the gangway, and the top of her mast being level with the bulwarks, submitted the shawl to the close scrutiny of the sailors. They examined it with awe and curiosity.
“It isn’t bunting,” said one.
“It looks like bunting too!” exclaimed another.
“See how it’s rigged up!” observed a third; “hitched on anyways.”
“If it ain’t a woman’s dress tore in two, I give it up,” said a fourth, “though there ain’t no woman in the boat as I can make out.”
By this time they were slinging Johnson under the arms and around the middle, ready to be hoisted over the gangway. Now that he was exposed, he made a more gaunt and sickening object than Holdsworth. He was an image of famine—of manhood killed by suffering—a picture such as the memory would retain when years had impaired its powers, and driven all other vivid impressions from it. The men fell back as the piteous object was reverently raised over the vessel’s side, and placed upon a sail near the main-hatchway. Then followed the form of Holdsworth.