Something had to be done. We had to get him aft. A rope was tied slack
under his armpits, and, reaching up at the risk of our lives, we
hung him on the fore-sheet cleet. He emitted no sound; he looked as
ridiculously lamentable as a doll that had lost half its sawdust, and we
started on our perilous journey over the main deck, dragging along
with care that pitiful, that limp, that hateful burden. He was not very
heavy, but had he weighed a ton he could not have been more awkward to
handle. We literally passed him from hand to hand. Now and then we had
to hang him up on a handy belaying-pin, to draw a breath and reform
the line. Had the pin broken he would have irretrievably gone into
the Southern Ocean, but he had to take his chance of that; and after a
little while, becoming apparently aware of it, he groaned slightly, and
with a great effort whispered a few words. We listened eagerly. He was
reproaching us with our carelessness in letting him run such risks:
"Now, after I got myself out from there," he breathed out weakly.
"There" was his cabin. And he got himself out. We had nothing to do with
it apparently!... No matter.
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