“He hadn’t got that fair out, when ‘Hard down--hard down!’ comes ravin’ from the watch for’ard. ‘Down,’ hollers Dal, and the _Colleen_ makes a shoot, and the booms start to come over. And just then the Skipper makes a jump for the waist after this Jimmie and slings him out of the way of the fore-boom. He saved Jimmie from having his head split open and knocked overboard and lost, but he couldn’t save himself. Even a man like Tom O’Donnell can’t sling a man out of the way on a wet and driving deck with one hand like he was a feather, and the boom ketches him side the head just as the vessel heels down again on the other tack and over the railing he goes----” “Not overboard, Tommie!” “Yes, overboard and into the black sea, and me standing by couldn’t save him from it. I jumped, but he was gone, and over on the other side the clumsy ark of a vessel we had to turn out for went on by. The watch must’ve been asleep aboard of her. I stood and cursed her lights as they went away from us. Yes, sir, cursed ’em out between the times I was hollering for the gang to come up. “‘On deck everybody--all hands on deck!’ I roars it loud’s I could, and had the gripes slashed off the nest of lee dories by the time they came up flying. “‘The Skipper is gone,’ says I--‘over with a dory!’ and we had one over in no time, and Jerry and me jumps in-- Jerry in his stockin’ feet--and out we goes. We couldn’t sees so much as a star in the sky, if there was one--not even the white tops of the seas--but we drove her out, and ’twas all we could do to keep the dory from capsizin’ by the way. ‘To looard!’ I says, and to looard we pushed her, and then, ‘Hi, the _Colleen Bawn_! On your lee quarter.’ ’Twas the Skipper’s voice. And maybe we didn’t row! But ’twas one thing to hear his voice, and another in that night and sea and blackness to find him, and keep the dory right side up at the same time. But he kept singin’ out and we kept drivin’ away, and at last we got him. A hard job he must’ve had trying to keep afloat with his big jack-boots on, and everything else on, for the fifteen minutes or more it took us to find him. “‘Lord!’ says he, ‘but I’m glad to see you. Paddling like a porpoise I’ve been since I went over the side. But drive for the vessel--there’s her port light--and I’ll keep bailin’, if one of ye’ll lend me your sou’wester.’ “We got alongside, and the Skipper climbs over the rail. ‘Put her on her course again,’ he says, and then starts to go below to overhaul his head. “And then Jimmie Johnson steps up. ‘How’d it come, Captain,’ he says, ‘you fell overboard?’ By the light from the cabin gangway the Skipper sees him, and---- “‘You little-- I dunno what--but go below. Take him for’ard, somebody,’ he says, ‘and tie him in his bunk, or give him laudanum out of the medicine-chest, afore we have all hands lost tryin’ to look after him.’