The hands could not be got away from the boat. Had she been the fossilised remnant of some antediluvian Armada, she could not have been examined by the men with more intense and breathless curiosity. There was no name on her, no clue of any kind to tell the ship she had belonged to, where she was built, what port she hailed from. There was, indeed, the word “London,” together with some figures branded upon the kegs; but this indicated nothing. They dragged the soaking bags of biscuit out of the locker, where they also found the fragments of the rum-bottles; and deep and numerous were the ejaculations these simple things called forth from the sailors, who gathered a story from them of which my hand is powerless to impart the thrilling pathos to my unvarnished version.
“See here!” said a man, shaking the kegs; “not a drain of water in them!”
“Here’s a boot with a piece cut clean out from the top of it,” said another.
“Some one has tried to make food out o’ that!” said an old salt, shaking a quantity of ringlets. “I’ve heerd tell of worse stuff nor boots being eat by castaway men!”
The fragments of dried biscuit were passed around and examined with wondering attention. The sail, the oars, the gratings—all came in for their share of closest and absorbed scrutiny. But the object that most excited speculation was the poor widow’s shawl, which, having been drenched and dried, and drenched and dried again, had become rotten, was full of holes, and as much resembled a shawl as a waistcoat.
“If this ain’t a curio, I should like to know what is!” said a seaman.
“It’s a bit of a gownd, that’s what I say it is!” exclaimed another authoritatively. “Think I can’t tell what a woman’s dress is like?”
“My notion is,” said an old man, standing aloof, “that there ain’t nothing mortal about it at all, but that it’s just a bit of bunting hoisted by death, to let the people as was in the boat know who their proper skipper was. I hope nobody means to bring it into the forecastle. I’ll not go a-nigh it for one.”
“Bring that thing aft here!” called Anderson; “and turn to there and get about your work.”
The men dispersed, and the watch below rolled into the forecastle, talking under their breaths, and making each other miserable with horrid legends of fire, disease, drowning, and starvation.