Page:Last Cruise of the Spitfire.djvu/88

80 I went down into the forecastle, and here Tony Dibble, a hand, managed to hunt me up some dry clothing. While I was putting it on the old sailor stood by, and presently said:

"I'm afraid you're going to have a hard time of it, my lad. I was thinking Lowell pushed you over, though he stood by it that you had fallen. I saw you just as you reached the water and I flung a stick after you, thinking it might keep you afloat."

"And it did," I replied. "If it hadn't been for that I might have been at the bottom by this time."

"The old man didn't want to turn back at first when he heard you were overboard," went on the old sailor. "He said it was bad luck."

"You don't mean to say he would have let me go to the bottom!" I cried.

"That's it; and me and Goller and Sampson wouldn't have it, and told him so, and then he turned back."

"I shall never forget what you have done for me," said I. And I never have to this day.

With dry clothes on I went on deck with the old sailor. Lowell did not come near me, and I saw nothing of him until the next day.