There's three hunder thousand pound sterlin', at a
conservative estimate, droonin' before our eyes. What's to do?'
An' his bearin's got hot again in a minute: he was an incontinent
man.
"'Run her as near as ye daur,' I said. 'Gie me a jacket an' a
lifeline, an' I'll swum for it.' There was a bit lump of a sea,
an' it was cold in the wind - vara cold; but they'd gone overside
like passengers, young Bannister an' Calder an' a', leaving the
gangway down on the lee-side. It would ha' been a flyin' in the
face o' manifest Providence to overlook the invitation. We were
within fifty yards o' her while Kinloch was garmin' me all over wi'
oil behind the galley; an' as we ran past I went outboard for the
salvage o' three hunder thousand pound. Man, it was perishin'
cold, but I'd done my job judgmatically, an' came scrapin' all
along her side slap on to the lower gratin' o' the gangway. No
one more astonished than me, I assure ye. Before I'd caught my
breath I'd skinned both my knees on the gratin', an' was climbin'
up before she rolled again. I made my line fast to the rail, an'
squattered aft to young Bannister's cabin, whaaur I dried me wi'
everything in his bunk, an' put on every conceivable sort o' rig
I found till the blood was circulatin'.
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