On being convinced of this, I ran below for a shawl that was in my cabin, and, jumping on to the bulwarks, stood flourishing it for some minutes to let them know that there was a man aboard. She luffed to deaden her way, that I might swim close, and as we approached each other I observed a crowd of heads forward looking at me, and several men aft, all staring intently.
A man scrambled on to the rail, and with an arm clasping a backstay hailed me:
"Schooner ahoy!" he bawled, with a strong nasal twang in his cry. "What ship's that?"
"The Boca del Dragon," I shouted back.
"Where are you from, and where are you bound to?"
"I have been locked up in the ice," I cried, "and am in want of help. What ship are you?"
"The Susan Tucker, whaler, of New Bedford, twenty-seven months out," he returned. "Where in creation got you that hooker?"
"I'm the only man aboard," I cried, "and have no boat. Send to me, in the name of God, and let the master come!"
He waved his hand, bawling, "Put your helm down—you're forging ahead!" and so saying, dismounted.
I immediately cast the tiller adrift, put it hard over, and secured it, then jumped on to the bulwarks again to watch them. She was Yankee beyond doubt; I had rather met my own countrymen; but, next to a British, I would have chosen an American ship to meet. Somehow, despite the Frenchman, I felt to have been alone throughout my adventure; and so sore was the effect of that solitude upon my spirits that it seemed twenty years since I had seen a ship, and since I had held commune with my own species. I was terribly agitated, and shook in every limb. Life must have been precious always; but never before had it appeared so precious as now, whilst I gazed at that homely ship, with her main-topsail to the mast, swinging stately upon the swell, the faces of the seamen plain, the smoke of her galley-fire breaking from the chimney, the sounds of creaking blocks and groaning parrels stealing from her. Such a fountain of joy broke out of my heart that my whole being was flooded with it, and had that mood lasted I believe I should have exposed the treasure in the run, and invited all the men of the whaler to share in it with me.