A Queer Race: The Story of a Strange People — page 81: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

78 A QUEER RACE. dashed against some iron-bound shore in that pitchy darkness would be death in its most frightful shape. Yet the certainty of death was easier to bear than the Suspense we were compelled to endure, and the con- sciousness that every moment might be our last. Bols- over, being still weak, could give me little help, and ex- cept when I took an hour’s rest, once or twice in the twenty-four, I was always at thehelm. But every man’s strength has its limits, and after awhile I became so used up that I could stand it no longer. ‘““Wecan only die once,” I said to Bolsover; “ and whether we live or die, I must sleep.’ So I lashed the wheel amidships and turned in. When I awoke there was a glimmering light, but whether of gioaming or dawn I[ could not determine, for IT had lost all count of time, knew not the day of the week, and had forgotten to wind up both my own watch and the late captain’s chronometer. I went on deck, and found the helm still lashed amid- ships; but Bolsover was nowhere to be seen, and I looked into his bunk, and armed with a lantern, visited all his accustomed haunts without result. ‘God bless me!” I thought. ‘* He surely cannot have fallen overboard! ‘T’hat would be too awful!” _ i returned to. the poop, seriously alarmed, and began to unlash the helm (not seeing what more I could do until there was more light), when I heard a hail from the mast- head. “Is that you, Tom?” I shouted. Rather a superfluous question, perhaps, for it could not well be anybody else. Yet it seemed hardly possible for a sick man to climb in the dark to the mast-head of a ship that was rolling like a log. “Ay, ay, sir; it’s me. I?ll be down directly,” was the answer. ten minutes later (by which time it was decidedly lighter) he came sliding down the shrouds, ‘‘What were you thinking of, to go up to the mast- head in your present weak state?’ I said, reproachfully. ‘‘Suppose you had fallen overboard ?” ‘And if 1 had! You know what you said before you turned in about two days since?” ‘<’'T wo days since 2?” Gomiecbooks: