"It's very well to say shove off, my bonny man, but look at it! We
brought the boat for fear there might be a chance, but there's no chance
at all."
"I think we might just have a try," said a large, grave man. "Will three
o' you come, and I'll steer her myself?"
"I'll be one," said a stiff little man, known as "Catfish."
"Let me go," said the young rabbit-catcher.
"I can pull as well as ever a one of you," he pleaded, when the large
man looked doubtful. I wanted to go, but it was decided that a fisherman
would pull better than I. So we got the boat hurled through the smother
of foam, and presently we heard the "Crack, crack," as the vanguard of
the real water began to strike at her.
My youngster was pulling with his hat off, and I saw him now and then,
as the boat swooped upward, and hung almost perpendicularly on the
striped side of a travelling wave. I believe I prayed. An old man, whose
son was rowing the stern oar (cobles only need three oars, two on one
side, and a long one astern) said, "Lord, have mercy on you, my bonny
Harry." Then he sobbed once, and his face became fixed, like a mask of
carven stone.
I do not know how long the wild buffeting lasted, but I know that
presently the bows of the boat appeared returning over a doubling sea,
and as she made her downward flight I saw a black, huddled mass in her.
Then there was a rush, and the coble came up on the sand. Only one trip
was needed. Five men were brought ashore; the other two hands had been
taken overboard by one sea just before the ship lost her rudder.
Years went by, and I returned to dwell in cities. One evening I went to
dine at a club. I was lounging in the reading-room, when a
splendid-looking man attracted my attention. He was a magnificently-built
young fellow, with a fine beard, and bright, steel-blue eyes. When he
rose, I saw that he was perfectly dressed, and when he spoke to a waiter,
his voice seemed deep, and his accent fine.
I looked down at my paper, and I then felt that he was looking at me.
When I looked up, he had risen, and was looking steadily in my face. He
made a step forward.
"Pardon me. How very, very strange!" I said; "I'm at a loss to remember
you. You'll forgive me."
"Don't you remember the Poachers' Hollow, and the brig, and Burke, and
the Differential?"
Then I knew, and we shook hands heartily. We dined together, and he told
me how his change of fortune had come about.
"It all came through that shipwreck," he explained.
"How was that?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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