“Me, is it? I was drownded. Nex’ mornin’ we was all dead. The sea was too heavy for a small boat well loaded, an’ that night a wave struck her an’ she went to pieces. I don’t know what I laid hold of when everything went from under us, but it must ’a’ been some of the wreckage; for some time next day I found myself on board a Spanish brig, with a hole stove in the side of my head, an’ no notion of what had happened to me arter the boat went to pieces. The brig took me across the ocean to Barcelona, an’ after a while in hospital there I worked my way back to London. Since that crack on the head I haven’t been no use on a wessel, so I’ve got a job here in the big warehouses. An’ that’s the whole story, sir. What became o’ that there other boat is more nor I can say. But if it was my father as was in her, sir, I’d be a-lookin’ any day fer him to come home. She was a better boat than I was in, an’ you see I’m safe on shore, though I was drownded as dead as ever anybody was. Leastways, I hope Christopher Silburn didn’t come to no harm, for he was always werry kind to me, lad—always werry kind to me.”
“Thank you,” Kit said, in a husky voice, seeing that the old man seemed to feel badly over the probable loss of his former mate. “But I have very little hope left, after what you tell me. Your being saved was almost a miracle, and we can hardly look for two miracles in the same shipwreck. You saw the Flower City go down, did you?”
“Went down right before our eyes, sir,” Blinkey answered, “less than five minutes after we left her. She couldn’t do nothin’ else, sir, with them iron castin’s in her.”
“Was there water in either boat?” Kit asked; “or provisions, or a compass?”
“Nothin’ in neither boat but the seats an’ oars, sir,” Blinkey replied; “there wasn’t no time. Why, we couldn’t even lower the boats; had to just cut ’em away, sir. An’ that reminds me. Did you ever see that before, sir?”
As he spoke the old sailor put one hand into his trousers pocket and drew forth a large iron-handled pocket knife, such as sailors often carry. The handle was polished bright by long rubbing against the pocket and its other contents.
“See it before!” Kit exclaimed; and his eyes moistened as he took the knife in his hand. “I should think I had seen it before! My father carried that knife as long as I can remember, and I often used to whittle with it when he was at home. Here’s a scar on the palm of my left hand now where I once cut myself with it.”
“Yes, sir, that was your father’s knife,” the old sailor answered. “He handed it to me that last night to cut the boat’s lashings with. But he couldn’t wait to get it back, and I put it in my pocket. The knife belongs to you, my boy—Mr. Silburn, I mean. You must take it, sir.”
“Thank you,” Kit murmured, very willing to accept the gift. “I am glad to have even that much from the wreck of the Flower City, though I hope for more. And I want to take down your address, so that I can find you in the future if necessary. Where will a letter reach you?”
“I don’t exactly know, sir,” the sailor replied, “for I haven’t had such a thing for many a day. I think if you was to direct it to Blinkey, an’ send it to the ‘Star an’ Garter’ public house in Gravesend, though, sir, they’d know who it was for an’ git it to me.”