When there was not much more than a boat's length between us,
and the white light streamed cold and clear over all our faces, both
crews rested on their oars with one great shudder, and stared over the
gunwale of either boat, panic-stricken at the first sight of each other.
"Any lives lost among you?" I asked, in the midst of that frightful
silence.
The men in the Long-bout huddled together like sheep at the sound of my
voice.
"None yet, but the child, thanks be to God!" answered one among them.
And at the sound of his voice, all my men shrank together like the men in
the Long-boat. I was afraid to let the horror produced by our first
meeting at close quarters after the dreadful changes that wet, cold, and
famine had produced, last one moment longer than could be helped; so,
without giving time for any more questions and answers, I commanded the
men to lay the two boats close alongside of each other. When I rose up
and committed the tiller to the hands of Rames, all my poor follows
raised their white faces imploringly to mine. "Don't leave us, sir,"
they said, "don't leave us." "I leave you," says I, "under the command
and the guidance of Mr. William Rames, as good a sailor as I am, and as
trusty and kind a man as ever stepped. Do your duty by him, as you have
done it by me; and remember to the last, that while there is life there
is hope. God bless and help you all!" With those words I collected what
strength I had left, and caught at two arms that were held out to me, and
so got from the stern-sheets of one boat into the stern-sheets of the
other.
"Mind where you step, sir," whispered one of the men who had helped me
into the Long-boat. I looked down as he spoke. Three figures were
huddled up below me, with the moonshine falling on them in ragged streaks
through the gaps between the men standing or sitting above them. The
first face I made out was the face of Miss Coleshaw, her eyes were wide
open and fixed on me. She seemed still to keep her senses, and, by the
alternate parting and closing of her lips, to be trying to speak, but I
could not hear that she uttered a single word. On her shoulder rested
the head of Mrs. Atherfield. The mother of our poor little Golden Lucy
must, I think, have been dreaming of the child she had lost; for there
was a faint smile just ruffling the white stillness of her face, when I
first saw it turned upward, with peaceful closed eyes towards the
heavens. From her, I looked down a little, and there, with his head on
her lap, and with one of her hands resting tenderly on his cheek--there
lay the Captain, to whose help and guidance, up to this miserable time,
we had never looked in vain,--there, worn out at last in our service, and
for our sakes, lay the best and bravest man of all our company. I stole
my hand in gently through his clothes and laid it on his heart, and felt
a little feeble warmth over it, though my cold dulled touch could not
detect even the faintest beating. The two men in the stern-sheets with
me, noticing what I was doing--knowing I loved him like a brother--and
seeing, I suppose, more distress in my face than I myself was conscious
of its showing, lost command over themselves altogether, and burst into a
piteous moaning, sobbing lamentation over him. One of the two drew aside
a jacket from his feet, and showed me that they were bare, except where a
wet, ragged strip of stocking still clung to one of them.
