Larry was now like my shadow, wherever I went, he followed, no one preventing him, except when he had to take his turn at the pumps or buckets.
Some of the officers had written letters addressed to friends or relatives, and were enclosing them in bottles headed up in small casks, so that some record might be preserved of our fate. Nettleship had prepared one.
“Have you anything to say to your friends at Ballinahone, Paddy?” he asked.
“Yes; beg your mother to write to them, and say that I send my love to all, not forgetting my uncle the major, and that I have been thinking much of them to-day,” I answered, as well as I could speak with the choking sensation in my throat.
“And please, Mr Nettleship, may I be so bold as to axe you to put in a word about Larry Harrigan, and to say that he stuck to Mr Terence to the last, and that if he couldn’t save him, it wasn’t the will that was wanting, but the cruel say was too much for us at last.”
“And put in a word to my family,—you know their address,” said Tom; “just my love, and that I was thinking of them. They’ll know that I was likely to have done my duty as far as I could, so I won’t trouble you with a longer message.”
Just as Nettleship had returned to the gun-room to add the messages to his letter, there came a shout from the poop—
“A sail! a sail!”
Many of the officers rushed up to take a look at her. Tom Pim and I followed them. We could make her out clearly,—a small vessel, right away to windward. The question was whether she would see us.
Captain Drury also had his telescope on her.