The little chap shuddered and pulled out a great blue pocket-handkerchief, with which he dried his forehead.
‘How long could a man live in a cabin under water?’ asked Mr. Johnson.
‘Long enough to come off with his life,’ answered the mate, bringing the glass from his eye and looking at Mr. Johnson. ‘I’ll give you a queer yarn in a few words, sir; wild enough to furnish out an A1 copper-bottomed sea-tale to some one of you literary gentlemen. A small vessel was dismasted ’twixt Tariffa and Tangier in the middle of the Gut there. All her crew saving one man got away in the boat. The fellow that was left lay drunk in the cabin. A sea shifted her cargo; shortly after she capsized and went down. A few days later, that same ship floated up from the bottom of the sea on to the shore near Tangier. She was boarded, and they found the man alive in the cabin.’
‘What was the vessel’s cargo, Mr. Prance?’ inquired little Saunders.
‘Oil and brandy, sir.’
‘Don’t you think,’ exclaimed Mr. Johnson, ‘that your story is one that would be very acceptable to the marines, Mr. Prance, but that would not be believed by your sailors were you to tell it to them?’
Here the captain, who had been slowly coming forward, accompanied by half-a-dozen ladies, interrupted us.
‘Mr. Prance.’
‘Sir?’
‘That object yonder is a danger in the way of navigation. I think it would be kind in us to send a shot at it.’