he buoy supported him bravely. His thoughts ran on things
past; he had spoken unkindly of Sally, behind her back; he had been
tipsy--Ah! how often! Then he thought, "Shall I pray and repent?" All
the dare-devil in the deluded lad's soul arose at this question, and he
snarled "No. Blowed if I snivel just yet, only because I'm in a bad
way." Oh, Jack, Jack! And the deep grave weltering below you, and only a
ring of cork and oilskin to keep you out of that cold home. Was there
never a shudder as you thought of the crowding fishes? Their merciless
cold eyes! Their grey, slimy skin! But Jack was at that day a reckless
fellow, and he lived to be passionately sorry for his splenetic madness.

The cold grew worse and worse, and it seemed to creep toward Jack's
heart. He gave one cry, and instantly he heard a faint answer. Could it
be the scream of a gull? Nay, they rest at night. He called again, and
the voice of his agony was answered by a loud hail; then a flare was
lit, and Jack knew that the steamer's boat had been searching for him.

"Easy. Shove the painter under his arms, and then two of you haul."

So Jack was plumped into the boat, and lay limp and sick. In an hour he
was warm asleep in his berth on board the steamer, and, I am afraid to
say that he begged hard for a pipe before he dozed over.

The steamer took him home, and he was received in a matter-of-fact way
by his people. He had had a dousing! Yes, but it was all in the day's
work. That is the way in which the good folk talk.

Jack was never the same again, and some of the old men said "he looked
as if he had seen something." Yes, he had seen something, and he said to
Sally, "All right about that letter of yours. Let it stick to the wall."
The man was very grave and kind, and he spoke freely to those of his
cronies who were on shore; but he would not go near his old haunts, and
some people thought he must have got religious. Perhaps he had. At any
rate something that happened not long afterwards made the supposition
probable. Jack was on the Ter Schelling bank when his turn came to go
home again, and he was moodily wondering whether any such ordeal would
ever be put on him as that which he endured when the steamer sank his
vessel.

The weather looked ugly; the glass went fast down, and a wild and
leprous-looking moon shone lividly through a shifting mask of troubled
clouds. A sullen calm fell, and the smack rolled with clashing blocks
and groaning spars, ma