Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/210

184 picked up it's the story of a lifetime. I don't believe the Lord saved us from the wreck to die on a summer morning like this. And, my, but you were good to me, Mr. Markle."

They floated in silence while the June sun rose higher, and heat and thirst piled up their wretchedness. The seasoned fiber of the old man had been toughened for such a stress as this. He hung on grimly because he had always hung on grimly to whatever life set him to endure. Although they were out on the edge of traffic bound in and out of the Delaware Capes, he still hoped, but mostly for the boy.

Six hours after the Albatross had gone to the bottom, a boat from a crippled brig, laden with salt from Turk's Island, picked up a bit of wreckage to which were lashed a white-haired man and a beardless lad. Both were too weak to talk, and the British skipper had them put into bunks, and poured raw Jamaica rum down their throats. Wilson was the first to revive, but he could not rise, and had to content himself with tidings that the pilot was alive and conscious. Night had come