Page:Last Cruise of the Spitfire.djvu/220

210 addressed me so cheerily was none other than Tony Dibble.

"Why, Dibble!" I returned, warmly, and clasped his hand.

"I thought you was on your way to Liverpool."

"I just got in Boston," I returned.

"And where's the Spitfire?"

"At the bottom of the Atlantic, Dibble."

"No!" He stared at me for a moment. "Then the old man" he began in a whisper.

"Hush! not so loud!" I interrupted. "Somebody may overhear you."

"That's so." He lowered his voice still more. "She was really done for, then?"

"Yes, burned up."

"Too bad! She was an old tub, nothin' better. But I kinder loved her, havin' sailed in her so long. The villains! They ought to be strung up to the yard-arm, every one of 'em!"

"How did you get here?" I asked, curiously.

"Just came up from New Bedford. That there lawyer, Ranson, said I had better come up here and wait till I heard from him. He was going to git a boat and go after the Spitfire."

"He did get a boat, and rescued Phil Jones and I from a raft, after the Spitfire was burned."

"Good for him! And where is the captain now?"