`Were they saved?' cried Florence.
`Days and nights they drifted on them endless waters,' said the Captain, `until at last--No! Don't look that way, pretty!--a sail bore down upon 'em, and they was, by the Lord's mercy, took aboard: two living and one dead.'
`Which of them was dead?' cried Florence.
`Not the lad I speak on,' said the Captain.
`Thank God! oh thank God!'
`Amen!' returned the Captain hurriedly. `Don't be took aback! A minute more, my lady lass! with a good
heart!--aboard that ship, they went a long voyage, right away across the chart (for there warn't no touching
nowhere), and on that voyage the seaman as was picked up with dim died. But he was spared, and
The Captain, without knowing what he did, had cut a slice of bread from the loaf, and put it on his hook (which was his usual toasting-fork), on which he now held it to the fire; looking behind Florence with great emotion in his face, and suffering the bread to blaze and burn like fuel.
`Was spared,' repeated Florence, `and
`And come home in that ship,' said the Captain, still looking in the same direction, `and--don't be frightened,
pretty--and landed; and one morning come cautiously to his own door to take a obserwation, knowing
that his friends would think him drownded, when he sheered off at the unexpected
`At the unexpected barking of a dog?' cried Florence quickly.
`Yes,' roared the Captain. `Steady, darling! courage!Don't look round yet. See there! upon the wall!'
There was the shadow of a man upon the wall close to her. She started up, looked round, and with a piercing cry, saw Walter Gay behind her!
She had no thought of him but as a brother, a brother rescued from the grave; a shipwrecked brother saved and at her side; and rushed into his arms. In all the world, he seemed to be her hope, her comfort, refuge, natural protector. `Take care of Walter, I was fond of Walter!' The dear remembrance of the plaintive voice that said so, rushed upon her soul, like music in the night. `Oh welcome home, dear Walter! Welcome to this stricken breast!' She felt the words, although she could not utter them, and held him in her pure embrace.
Captain Cuttle, in a fit of delirium, attempted to wipe his head with the blackened toast upon his hook: and finding it an uncongenial substance for the purpose, put it into the crown of his glazed hat, put the glazed hat on with some difficulty, essayed to sing a verse of Lovely Peg, broke down at the first word, and retired into the shop, whence he presently came back, express, with a face all flushed and besmeared, and the starch completely taken out of his shirt-collar, to say these words:
`Wal'r, my lad, here is a little bit of property as I should wish to make over, jintly!'
The Captain hastily produced the big watch, the teaspoons, the sugar-tongs, and the canister, and laying them on the table, swept them with his great hand into Walter's hat; but in handing that singular strong box to Walter, he was so overcome again, that he was fain to make another retreat into the shop, and absent himself for a longer space of time than on his first retirement.
But Walter sought him out, and brought him back; and then the Captain's great apprehension was, that Florence would suffer from this new shock. He felt it so earnestly, that he turned quite rational, and positively interdicted any further allusion to Walter's adventures for some days to come. Captain Cuttle