"On deck there!" shouted Hardy, who was usurping all the privileges of the captain in that moment of tumultuous sensations. "Send down a chair and bear a hand." And whilst this well-understood order was being executed—it meant simply a tail-block at the main yard-arm and a line rove through the block with a cabin-chair secured to the end of it—and whilst the four nearly spent sailors of the boat were being helped by the men in the ship, Hardy was talking to Julia.
"What a meeting! What has happened to your ship?"
Her lips were pale and a little cracked, her eyes were languid, and dim with tears, a shadow as of hollowness lay upon each cheek. She spoke with difficulty.
"The Glamis Castle was burnt two days ago in the night. We have been drifting about since then without food or water. Oh, thank God for this! thank God for this—and to meet you!"
"Bear a hand, my lads, bear a hand," shouted Hardy, whilst the captain with his head showing above the rail stood staring into the boat. The mate would not tax her with speech; she might be dying! Some alert seamen were in that clipper, and to the instincts and humanity of a British sailor no form of distress appeals more vehemently than the open boat in which they see no breaker, than the open boat in which men and women may be dying of thirst. Swiftly, as though the crew of the York were the disciplined and gallant hearts of the battle-ship, a chair, well secured, sank from the yard-arm and was seized by Hardy. He lifted the girl on to it, took a turn round her with a piece of line which had come down with it, and she soared from his nimble, skilful hands, and vanished from his sight behind the bulwarks. He gained the deck in a few instants, and was at the girl's side before the sailors could liberate her from the chair.
"She is a dear friend of mine," said he, loudly, that the men might understand that more was in this thrilling passage than humanity only. And passing his arm round her waist to support her he helped her to walk aft.
The captain's face looked dark with disappointment, and as Hardy drew close to him he heard him mutter, "They have not brought him, they have not brought him!"
"I will take this lady below, sir," said Hardy, speaking rapidly. "Her ship has been burnt. They have been without food and water for two or three days," and he passed on with the girl to the companion-hatch, whilst the captain stood dumbly following them with his eyes, with the noble Newfoundland standing beside him.
In silence the two descended the cabin ladder, and with the tenderness of a lover, which in such men as Hardy has the sweetness of a woman's love, he placed her upon a locker and poured out a little water. She drank with the passion of thirst, and asked for more with her eyes, but Hardy knew better and gave her a biscuit, which would lightly soothe the craving of the hunger that is often felt after thirst is assuaged. She bit a little piece of biscuit, and said: