All round, the rolling sea was speckled with tiny boats that careered from hill to hollow, and hollow to hill, while the two cool rowers snatched the water with sharp dexterous strokes. After the wild ordeal of the past two days these fishers quietly turned to and began ferrying the fish taken in the last haul. While the boat was being got ready, Ferrier gave Mrs. Walton and Miss Dearsley an arm each, and did his best to convey them along the rearing deck. The girl said—
"Is that the steam-carrier I have heard of? How fearful! It makes me want to shut my eyes."
To Marion Dearsley's unaccustomed sight the lurching of the carrier was indeed awful, and she might well wonder, as I once did, how any boat ever got away safely. I have often told the public about that frantic scene alongside the steamers, but words are only a poor medium, for not Hugo, nor even Clark Russell, the matchless, could give a fair idea of that daily survival of danger, and recklessness, and almost insane audacity. The skipper was used to put in his word pretty freely on all occasions, for Blair's men were not drilled in the style of ordinary yachtsmen. Freeman, like all of the schooner's crew, had been a fisherman, and he grinned with pleasing humour when he heard the young lady's innocent questions.
"Bless you, Miss, that's nothing. See 'em go in winter when you can't see the top of the steamboat's mast as she gets behind a sea. Many and many's the one I've seen go. They're used to it, but I once seen a genelman faint—he was weak, poor fellow—and we took aboard a dose of water that left us half-full. He would come at any risk, and when we histed him up on the cutter's deck, and he comes to, he shudders and he says, 'That is too horrible. Am I a-dreaming?' But it's all use, Miss. Even when some poor fellows is drowned, the men do all they can; and if they fail, they forget next day."
"Could you edge us towards the cutter, skipper?" said Fullerton.
"Oh, yes. Bear up for the carrier, Bill; mind this fellow coming down."
The beautiful yacht was soon well under the steamer's lee, and the ladies watched with dazed curiosity the work of the tattered, filthy, greasy mob who bounded, and strained, and performed their prodigies of skill on the thofts and gunwales of the little boats. Life and limb seemed to be not worth caring for; men fairly hurled themselves from the steamer into the boats, quite careless as to whether they landed on hands or feet, or anyhow. Fullerton exclaimed—
"Just to think that of all those splendid, plucky smacksmen, we haven't got one yet! I've been using the glass, and can't see a face that I know. How can we? We haven't funds, and we cannot send vessels out."
Miss Dearsley's education was being rapidly completed. Her strong, quick intelligence was catching the significance of everything she saw. The smack with the lost mainsail was drawing near, and the doctor was ready to go, when a boat with four men came within safe distance of the schooner's side.
"Can you give us any assistance, sir? Our mate's badly wounded—seems to a' lost his senses like, and don't understand."
A deadly pale man was stretched limply on the top of a pile of fish-boxes. Mrs. Walton said—
"Pray take us away—we cannot bear the sight."
And indeed Marion Dearsley was as pale as the poor blood-smeared fisherman. Ferrier coolly waited and helped Tom and Fullerton to hoist the senseless, mangled mortal on deck. The crew did all they could to keep the boat steady, but after every care the miserable sufferer fell at last with a sudden jerk across the schooner's rail. He was too weak to moan.
"Don't take him below yet," said Ferrier. "Lennard, you help me. Why, you've let his cap get stuck to his head, my man. Warm water, steward".
The man was really suffering only from extreme loss of blood; a falling block had hit him, and a ghastly flap was torn away from his scalp. That steady, deft Scotchman worked away, in spite of the awkward roll of the vessel, like lightning. He cut away the clotted hair, cleansed the wound; then he said sharply—
"How did you come to let your shipmate lose so much blood?"
"Why, sir, we hadn't not so much as a pocket-handkerchief aboard. We tried a big handful of salt, but that made him holler awful before he lost his senses, and the wessel was makin' such heavy weather of it, we couldn't spare a man to hould him when he was rollin' on the cabin floor."
"Yes, sir; Lord, save us!" said another battered, begrimed fellow. "If he'd a-rolled agen the stove we couldn't done nothin'. We was hard put to it to save the wessel and ourselves."
"I see now. Steward, my case. This must be sewn up."
Ferrier had hardly drawn three stitches through, when one of the seamen fainted away, and this complication, added to the inexorable roll of the yacht, made Ferrier's task a hard one; but the indomitable Scot was on his mettle. He finished his work, and then said—
"Now, my lads, you cannot take your mate on board again. I'm going to give him my own berth, and he'll stay here."
"How are we to get him again, sir?"
"That I don't know. I only know that he'll die if he has to be flung about any more."
"Well, sir, you fare to be a clever man, and you're a good 'un. We're not three very good 'uns, me and these chaps isn't, but if you haves a meetin' Sunday we're goin' to be here."
Then came the usual handshaking, and the two gentlemen's palms were remarkably unctuous before the visitors departed.
"Look here, Lennard, if I'd had slings something like those used in the troopships for horses, I should have got that poor fellow up as easily as if he'd been a kitten. And now, how on earth are we to lower him down that narrow companion? We must leave it to Freeman and the men. Neither of us can keep a footing. What a pity we haven't a wide hatchway with slings! That twisting down the curved steps means years off the poor soul's life."
The gentle sailors did their best, but the patient suffered badly, and Ferrier found it hard to force beef-tea between the poor fellow's clenched teeth.
Lucky Tom Betts! Had he been sent back to the smack he would have died like a dog; as it was, he was tucked into a berth between snowy sheets, and Tom Lennard kept watch over him while Ferrier went off to board the disabled smack. All the ladies were able to meet in the saloon now, and even the two invalids eagerly asked at short intervals after the patient's health. Lucky Tom Betts!
Marion Dearsley begged that she might see him, and Tom gave gracious permission when he thought his charge was asleep. Miss Dearsley was leaning beside the cot. "Like to an angel bending o'er the dying who die in righteousness, she stood," when she and Lennard met with a sudden surprise. The wounded man opened his great dark eyes that showed like deep shadows on the dead white of his skin; he saw that clear, exquisite face with all the divine fulness of womanly tenderness shining sweetly from the kind eyes, and he smiled—a very beautiful smile. He could speak very low, and the awe-stricken girl murmured—
"Oh, hear him, Mr. Lennard, hear him!"
The man spoke in a slow monotone.
"Its all right, and I'm there arter all. I've swoor, and Ive drunk, and yet arter all I'm forgiven. That's because I prayed at the very last minute, an' He heerd me. The angel hasn't got no wings like what they talked about, but that don't matter; I'm here, and safe, and I'll meet the old woman when her time comes, and no error; but it ain't no thanks to me."
Then the remarkable theologian drew a heavy sigh of gladness, and passed into torpor again. Tom Lennard, in a stage whisper which was calculated to soothe a sick man much as the firing of cannon might, said—
"Well, of all the what's-his-names, that beats every book that ever was."
Tears were standing in the lady's sweet eyes, and there was something hypocritical in the startling cough whereby Thomas endeavoured to pose as a hard and seasoned old medical character.
Meanwhile Ferrier was slung on board the smack which hailed first, and his education was continued with a vengeance.
"Down there, sir!"