I warped the lady
and the children upward--Heaven knows how; for the sea was breaking
over us very sharp--till we were at the mainmast stump, and holding on
by the wreck of it. I felt the ship stagger as if a whale had struck
her, and heard a roar and a swish behind me, and looked back--just in
time to see mizen, and poop, and all the poor women and children in
it, go bodily, as if they had been shaved off with a knife. I suppose
that altered her balance; for before I could turn again she dived
forward, and then rolled over upon her beam ends to leeward, and I saw
the sea walk in over her from stem to stern like one white wall, and I
was washed from my hold, and it was all over."
"What became of the lady?"
"I saw a white thing flash by to leeward,--what's the use of asking?"
"But the child you held?"
"I didn't let it go till there was good reason."
"Eh?"
Tom tapped the points of his fingers smartly against the side of
his head, and then went on, in the same cynical drawl, which he had
affected throughout--
"I heard that--against a piece of timber as we went overboard And,
as a medical man, I considered after that, that I had done my duty.
Pretty little boy it was, just six years old: and such a fancy for
drawing."
The Lieutenant was quite puzzled by Tom's seeming nonchalance.
"What do you mean, sir? Did you leave the child to perish?"
"Confound you, sir! If you will have plain English, here it is.
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