Carolyn May appreciated their attempts to amuse her, but she clung close to Benjamin, for she had a question in her mind that only he, she thought, could answer. “You come with me, please,” she whispered to the old seaman after dinner. “You can smoke. You haven’t got to go back to work yet, and Tim is only just loading his sled. So we can talk.” “Aye, aye, little miss. What’ll we talk about?” queried Benjamin cautiously, for he remembered that he was to be very circumspect in his conversation with her. “I want you to tell me something, Benjamin,” she said. “Sail ahead, matey,” he responded with apparent heartiness, filling his pipe meanwhile. “Why, Benjamin—you must know, you know, for you’ve been to sea so much—Benjamin, I want to know if it hurts much to be drownd-ed?” “Hurts much?” gasped the old seaman. “Yes, sir. Do people that get drownd-ed feel much pain? Is it a sufferin’ way to die? I want to know, Benjamin, ’cause my papa and mamma died that way,” continued the child, choking a little. “It does seem as though I’d just _got_ to know.” “Aye, aye,” muttered the man. “I see. An’ I kin tell ye, Car’lyn May, as clos’t as anybody kin. I’ve been so near drownin’ myself that they thought I was dead when I was hauled inboard. “That was when I sailed in the old _Paducah_, a cotton boat, from N’Orleans to Liverpool. That was long ’fore I got to runnin’ on the Cross and Crescent Line boats, ’cause steamships is easier to work on than sailin’ vessels. “Well, now, listen. We used to carry almighty cargoes—yes’m. Decks loaded till we could scarce handle sail. She was down to the mark, and then some. An’ if it come on to blow, we was all in danger of our lives. Owners cared more for freight money than they did for the lives of her crew.” [Illustration: “_Do people that get drownd-ed feel much pain?_”] “Oh! How very wicked!” exclaimed Carolyn May, her mind led somewhat away from the gruesome question she had propounded to Benjamin. “’Twas that, indeed,” agreed the sailor, puffing on his pipe. “The old _Paducah_ sometimes rolled through the wash like she was top-heavy. And if the swell got too strong for her we had to jettison the top tiers of cotton bales—pitch ’em overboard, you see.” “Oh!” “An’ one day, when the old craft was rollin’ till her yards nigh touched the sea, I was loosin’ the upper tier of bales and slidin’ ’em overboard, when over _I_ went with one of ’em.” “Oh, Benjamin! Never!” “Aye, aye, matey. That’s what I done,” said the old man, sucking away on his pipe. “There was me in the sea, hangin’ on to a balehook that was stuck in the cotton. The old _Paducah_ rushed by me, it seemed, like an express train past a cripple.” “But you weren’t drownd-ed!” exclaimed Carolyn May.