“How did the others behave,” said I, “in this awful situation? Pretty well?”
“It was too dark to see,” he answered.
“Did you encourage one another?”
“Well,” he replied, “the cook at first kept on singin’ out, ‘We’re all drownded men! Lord have mercy upon me!’ and the like of that, until the cold took away his voice. I don’t know that there was any other sort o’ encouragement.”
“And what were your feelings,” said I, “when the brig took the ground and the water washed over her?”
“My feelings?” he replied. “Why, that we was in a bloomin’ mess. That was my feelings.”
“How did the prospect of death affect you—I mean the idea of being swept into the black water and strangling there?”
“Are you chaffin’ me, sir?” he asked.
“Certainly not,” said I.
“Well,” he said, “I’m blessed if I was asked such a question as that afore,” grinning. “It’s like a meetin’-house question.”