'And how is Jacob?' said I.
'Oh, he's a-feeling a little better, sir. A good bit down, of course, as we both are. 'Taint realizable even now.'
'Do you refer to the loss of your lugger?' said Captain Bunting.
'Ay, sir, to the Airly Marn,' answered Abraham, confronting him, and gazing at him with a steadfastness that slightly increased his squint.
'But surely, my good fellow,' cried the Captain, 'you had plenty of time, I hope, to feel thoroughly grateful for your preservation from the dreadful fate which lay before you had Providence suffered you to continue your voyage?'
'Oi dunno about dreadful fate,' answered Abraham: 'all I can say is, I should be blooming glad if that there Airly Marn was afloat again, or if so be as we'd never fallen in with this here Light of the World.'
'It is as I told you, you perceive,' exclaimed the Captain, smiling and addressing Helga and me in his blandest manner: 'as we descend the social scale, recognition of signal and providential mercies grows feebler and feebler, until it dies out—possibly before it gets down to Deal boatmen. I want a word with you, Abraham Wise. But first, how have you been treated forward?'
'Oh, werry well indeed, sir,' he answered. 'The mate showed us where to tarn in when the time comes round, and I dessay we'll manage to git along all right till we gets clear of ye.'
'What have you had to eat?'
'The mate gave us a little bit o' pork for to be biled, but ye've got a black cook forrads as seemed to Jacob and me to take the dressing of that there meat werry ill.'