'Wish it were already aimed,' said Abraham. 'Pay enough? Oy, and good monney, tew, in such times as these.'
'How far are we from the English coast?' asked Helga.
The man called Jacob, after a little silence, answered: 'Why, I dare say the Land's End'll be about a hundred an' eighty mile off.'
'It would not take long to return!' she exclaimed. 'Will you not land us?'
'What! on the English coast, mum?' he cried.
I saw him peering earnestly at us, as though he would gather our condition by our attire.
'It's a long way back,' continued he; 'and supposing the wind,' he added, looking up at the sky, 'should head us?'
'If the gent would make it worth us men's while——' broke in Tommy.
'No, no!' exclaimed Abraham, 'we don't want to make nothen out of a fellow-creature's distress. We've saved ye, and that's a good job. Next thing we've got to do is to put ye aboard the first homeward bound vessel we falls in with. I'm for keeping all on. Ships is plentiful hereabout, and ye'll not be kept awaiting. But to up hellum for the English coast again——' I saw his head wag vehemently against the stars. 'It's a long way to Australey, master, and ne'er a man of us touches a penny-piece till we gits there.'
I sat considering a little. My immediate impulse was to offer the fellows a reward to land us. Then I thought—no! They may ask too much, and, indeed, whatever they might expect must prove too much for me, to whom five pounds was a considerable sum, though, as I have told you, my mother's slender income was enough for us both. Besides, the money these men might ask would be far more fitly devoted to Helga, who had lost all save what she stood in—who was without a friend in England except myself and mother, who had been left by her father without a farthing saving some pitiful sum of insurance-money, which she would not get for many a long day, and who, brave heart! would, therefore, need my mother's purse to refurnish her wardrobe and embark her for her Danish home, if, indeed, there would now be a home for her at Kolding.