I tried to write
it down in my pocket-book, but could make no words, though I knew what
the words were that I wanted to make. When it had come to that, her
hands--though she was dead so long--laid me down gently in the bottom of
the boat, and she and the Golden Lucy swung me to sleep.
* * * * *
_All that follows, was written by John Steadiman, Chief Mate_:
On the twenty-sixth day after the foundering of the Golden Mary at sea,
I, John Steadiman, was sitting in my place in the stern-sheets of the
Surf-boat, with just sense enough left in me to steer--that is to say,
with my eyes strained, wide-awake, over the bows of the boat, and my
brains fast asleep and dreaming--when I was roused upon a sudden by our
second mate, Mr. William Rames.
"Let me take a spell in your place," says he. "And look you out for the
Long-boat astern. The last time she rose on the crest of a wave, I
thought I made out a signal flying aboard her."
We shifted our places, clumsily and slowly enough, for we were both of us
weak and dazed with wet, cold, and hunger.
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