Part 33 (1/2)

He removed it as the mate looked, and showed a ghastly wound. Still, neither of them spoke. The mate averted his gaze, and sickened with fear as he thought of his position; and in that instant the skipper clutched the painter, and, with a mighty heave, sent the boat leaping towards the stern of the barge, and sprang on deck. The mate rose to his feet; but the other pushed him fiercely aside, and picking up the handspike, which lay on the raised top of the cabin, went below. Half an hour later he came on deck with a fresh suit of clothes on, and his head roughly bandaged, and standing in front of the mate, favoured him with a baleful stare.

”Gimme that helm,” he cried.

The mate relinquished it.

”You dog!” snarled the other, ”to try and kill a man when he wasn't looking, and then keep him in his wet clothes in the boat all night.

Make the most o' your time. It'll be many a day before you see the sea again.”

The mate groaned in spirit, but made no reply.

”I've wrote everything down with the time it happened,” continued the other in a voice of savage satisfaction; ”an' I've locked that hand-spike up in my locker. It's got blood on it.”

”That's enough about it,” said the mate, turn-ing at last and speaking thickly. ”What I've done I must put up with.”

He walked forward to end the discussion; but the skipper shouted out choice bits from time to time as they occurred to him, and sat steer.

ing and gibing, a gruesome picture of vengeance.

Suddenly he sprang to his feet with a sharp cry. ”There's somebody in the water,” he roared; ”stand by to pick him up.”

As he spoke he pointed with his left hand, and with his right steered for something which rose and fell lazily on the water a short distance from them.

The mate, following his outstretched arm, saw it too, and picking up a boat-hook stood ready, and they were soon close enough to distinguish the body of a man supported by a life-belt.

”Don't miss him,” shouted the skipper.

The mate grasped the rigging with one hand, and leaning forward as far as possible stood with the hook poised. At first it seemed as though the object would escape them, but a touch of the helm in the nick of time just enabled the mate to reach. The hook caught in the jacket, and with great care he gradually shortened it, and drew the body close to the side.

”He's dead,” said the skipper, as he fastened the helm and stood looking down into the wet face of the man. Then he stooped, and taking him by the collar of his coat dragged the stream-ing figure on to the deck.

”Take the helm,” he said.

”Ay, ay,” said the other; and the skipper disappeared below with his burden.

A moment later he came on deck again. ”We'll take in sail and anchor.

Sharp there!” he cried.

The mate went to his a.s.sistance. There was but little wind, and the task was soon accomplished, and both men, after a hasty glance round, ran below. The wet body of the sailor lay on a locker, and a pool of water was on the cabin floor.

The mate hastily swabbed up the water, and then lit the fire and put on the kettle; while the skipper stripped the sailor of his clothes, and flinging some blankets in front of the fire placed him upon them.

Fora long time they toiled in silence, in the faint hope that life still remained in the apparently dead body.

”Poor devil!” said the skipper at length, and fell to rubbing again.

”I don't believe he's gone,” said the mate, panting with his exertions.

”He don't feel like a dead man.”

Ten minutes later the figure stirred slightly, and the men talked in excited whispers as they worked. A faint sigh came from the lips of the sailor, and his eyes partly opened.