The captain did not think it necessary to view the body that had been
snatched from the deep. The captain was a compassionate man and full of
tender feeling; he was exceedingly glad that he had had it in his power
to pick up that body, even with the small probability there was of being
able to restore life to its frozen blood; but he would have been much
more grateful to Providence had it been so willed that it should have
been picked up without the necessity of stopping the engines of the
steamer for nearly a quarter of an hour. It was explained to him that
Miss Gerald had been the first to see the face of the man upon the
wreck, but he could scarcely understand how it was possible for her to
have seen it from her cabin. He was also puzzled to know how it was that
the log-line had not been carried away so soon as it was entangled in
such a large mass of wreck when the steamer was going at full speed.
He, however, thought it as well to resume his broken slumbers without
waiting to solve either of these puzzling questions.
But the chief officer who was now on watch, when the deck was once more
deserted--Daireen having been taken down to her cabin--made the attempt
to account for both of these occurrences. He found that the girl's cabin
was not far astern of the companion-rail that had been lowered during
the day, and he saw that, in the confusion of weighing anchor in the
dimness, a large block with its gear which was used in the hauling of
the vegetable baskets aboard, had been allowed to hang down the side of
the ship between the steps of the rail; and upon the hook of the block,
almost touching the water, he found some broken cordage. He knew then
that the hook had caught fast in the cordage of the wreck as the steamer
went past, and the wreck had swung round until it was just opposite the
girl's cabin, when the cordage had given way; not, however, until some
of the motion of the ship had been communicated to the wreck so that
there was no abrupt strain put on the log-line when it had become
entangled. It was all plain to the chief officer, as no doubt it would
have been to the captain had he waited to search out the matter.
So soon as the body had been brought aboard the ship all the interest of
the passengers seemed to subside, and the doctor was allowed to pursue
his experiments of resuscitation without inquiry. The chief officer
being engaged at his own business of working out the question of the
endurance of the log-line, and keeping a careful lookout for any other
portions of wreck, had almost forgotten that the doctor and two of the
sailors were applying a series of restoratives to the body of the man
who had been detached from the wreck. It was nearly two hours after he
had come on watch that one of the sailors--the one who had been kneeling
by the side of Daireen--came up to the chief officer presenting Doctor
Campion's compliments, with the information that the man was breathing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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