‘You may well say that, sir; and it’s just a miracle as we’re still afloat.’ ‘How little we thought, as we talked together on deck an hour or two ago, that death was so close at hand for some of us.’ ‘Ay, indeed, and with that smiling, burning, treacherous blue sky above us. You have seen some of the dangers now, sir. I suppose you ain’t going, in the face of this storm, to hold to Bill’s song, that “Whatever is, is best.”’ ‘Yes, I am, Williams,’ replied the young man firmly. ‘What! with our tight little ship knocked to pieces in this fashion, and your arm broken in two places?’ ‘Just so, Williams. Heaven sent both the storm and the accident. They _must_ be for the best.’ ‘Well, I’m blowed!’ exclaimed the old sailor in sheer amazement. The announcement seemed to have taken all the wind out of his sails, and he sat staring at the wounded man as if he had charge of a lunatic. ‘How comes it that you are attending on me?’ asked Egerton, as Williams handed him a glass of water. ‘Well, sir, I seem to have took a fancy to your way of talking; so when they wanted some one here to help the doctor with your arm I offered to come, that’s all.’ ‘It was very good of you. You told me this morning that you had had troubles, and prayer had never availed to get you out them. Do you mind telling me what those troubles are?’ ‘Not a bit, sir, if I sha’n’t tire you; but it is a long story. I had a sweetheart when I was a young chap—most young chaps have, you know, sir—I daresay you’ve had one yourself before now—and I had a school-mate, too, by name—well! we’ll call him Robert—and we both loved the girl dearly; but he got her, sir, and I had to go to the wall.’ ‘That was very unlucky for you.’ ‘Well, it was unfortunate, though he courted her above-board, and all was fair enough at the time. But the worst of it was that he turned out a regular bad ’un, and ill-treated his wife shamefully arter he’d married her. When I came home from sea, it used to make my blood reg’lar boil to hear poor Lottie tell how he’d beaten and kicked and starved her, for he’d taken to drink, you see, sir, and all his love had gone like a flash of lightning.’ ‘Was he a sailor too?’ ‘Yes, sir, and once, when I come off a long voyage to China and Australy, and round home by San Francisco, I heard that Lottie was a widder and in great distress, without hardly a bit of money. Well, I looked her up pretty sharp, as you may guess, and I found it was all true.’ ‘And then you married her.’ ‘No, I didn’t sir. I’ve never been married. I don’t deny I asked her, but she wouldn’t have me, nor no one. She said it was too late, and she was dyin’, which sure enough she was. But she had a child, sir—little Dickey—such a dear little chap, with blue eyes—just like her own—and pretty yeller curls; and when she died she left him on my hands, and lor’, how fond I was of that little creetur! He took his poor mammy’s place in my heart altogether.’