'Come along, Abey! come along, Tommy!' bawled Jacob. 'Droy up, mates' More'n enough's been said;' and with that he laid hold of the halliards, and, without another word, Abraham and Thomas seized the rope, and the sail was mastheaded.
Abraham went to the tiller, the other two went to work to get breakfast, and now, in a silence that was not a little refreshing after the coarse hoarse clamour of the quarrel, the lugger buzzed onwards afresh.
'We shall be more fortunate next time,' said Helga, looking wistfully at me; and well I knew there was no want of worry in my face; for now there was peace in the boat the infamous cold-blooded indifference of the rogues we had just passed made me feel half mad.
'We might have been starving,' said I; 'we might have been perishing for the want of a drink of water, and still the ruffians would have treated us so.'
'It is but waiting a little longer, Hugh,' said Helga softly.
'Ay, but how much longer, Helga?' said I. 'Must we wait for Cape Town, or perhaps Australia?'
'Mr. Tregarthen—don't let imagination run away with ye!' exclaimed Abraham, in a voice of composure that was not a little astonishing after his recent outbreak; though, having a tolerably intimate knowledge of the 'longshore character, and being very well aware that the words these fellows hurl at one another mean little, and commonly end in nothing—unless the men are drunk—I was not very greatly surprised by the change in our friend. 'There's nothen' that upsets the moind quicker than imagination. I'll gi' ye a yarn. There's an old chap, of the name of Billy Buttress, as crawls about our beach. A little grandson o' his took the glasses out o' his spectacles by way o' amusing hisself. When old Billy puts 'em on to read with, he sings out: "God bless me, Oi'm gone bloind!" and trembling, and all of a clam, as the saying is, he outs with his handkerchief to woipe the glasses, thinking it might be dirt as hindered him from seeing, and then he cries out, "Lor' now, if I an't lost my feeling!" He wasn't to be comforted till they sent for a pint o' ale and showed him that his glasses had been took out. That's imagination, master. Don't you be afeered. We'll be setting ye aboard a homeward-bounder afore long.'
By the time the fellows had got breakfast, the hull of the barque astern was out of sight; nothing showed of her but a little hovering glance of canvas, and the sea-line swept from her to ahead of us in a bare unbroken girdle.