“An’ that, o’ course, kinder hove him outer water, julluk runnin’ a craft ashore; hove him right aout, I take it, to rememberin’ Johnstown an’ Jacob Boiler an’ suchlike reminiscences.
Well, consolin’ Jason there held him up a piece, same’s shorin’ up a boat. Then, bein’ weak, them props slipped an’ slipped, an’ he slided down the ways, an’ naow he’s waterborne agin. That’s haow I sense it.”
They decided that Disko was entirely correct.
“ ’Twould ha’ bruk Salters all up,” said Long Jack, “if Penn had stayed Jacob Boilerin’. Did ye see his face when Penn asked who he’d been charged on all these years? How is ut, Salters?”
“Asleep—dead asleep. Turned in like a child,” Salters replied, tiptoeing aft.
“There won’t be no grub till he wakes, natural. Did ye ever see sech a gift in prayer? He everlastin’ly hiked young Olley outer the ocean. Thet’s my belief. Jason was tur’ble praoud of his boy, an’ I mistrusted all along ’twas a jedgment on worshippin’ vain idols.”
“There’s others jes as sot,” said Disko.
“That’s difrunt,” Salters retorted quickly. “Penn’s not all caulked, an’ I ain’t only but doin’ my duty by him.”
They waited, those hungry men, three hours, till Penn reappeared with a smooth face and a blank mind. He said he believed that he had been dreaming. Then he wanted to know why they were so silent, and they could not tell him.
Disko worked all hands mercilessly for the next three or four days; and when they could not go out, turned them into the hold to stack the ship’s stores into smaller compass, to make more room for the fish.