tongues. His words did run together a little, but he was not drunk.
“Men and women,” said he, “what I told that poor devil is Gospel truth; but I didn’t tell him we’d no chance of saving our lives, did I? Not me, because we have! Keep your heads and listen to me. There’s two good boats on the davits amidships; the chief will take one, the second officer the other; and there ain’t no reason why every blessed one of you shouldn’t sleep in Ascension to-morrow night. As for me, let me see every soul
of so good a man as her stepfather, simply because he had breadth enough to sympathize with a coarse old salt like Captain Harris.
I turned in, however, and I cannot say the matter kept me awake in the separate state-room which was one luxury of our empty saloon. Alas? I was a heavy sleeper then.
CHAPTER