"I only 'ope yer don't ever 'ave to get used to such as that in this life, 'cos you've got a bloomin' soft skin, that you 'ave, more like a lydy's than any I know of.I was bloomin' well sure you was a gentleman as soon as I set eyes on yer."I had taken a dislike to him at first, and as he helped to dress me this dislike increased.There was something repulsive about his touch.
I shrank from his hand; my flesh revolted.And between this and the smells arising from various pots boiling and bubbling on the galley fire, I was in haste to get out into the fresh air.Further, there was the need of seeing the captain about what arrangements could be made for getting me ashore.
A cheap cotton shirt, with frayed collar and a bosom discolored with what I took to be ancient blood-stains, was put on me amid a running and apologetic fire of comment.A pair of workman's brogans encased my feet, and for trousers I was furnished with a pair of pale blue, washed-out overalls, one leg of which was fully ten inches shorter than the other.The abbreviated leg looked as though the devil had there clutched for the Cockney's soul and missed the shadow for the substance.
"And whom have I to thank for this kindness?" I asked, when stood completely arrayed, a tiny boy's cap on my head, and for coat a dirty, striped cotton jacket which ended at the small of my back and the sleeves of which reached just below my elbows.
The cook drew himself up in a smugly humble fashion, a deprecating smirk on his face.Out of my experience with stewards on the Atlantic liners at the end of the voyage, I could have sworn he was waiting for his tip.
From my fuller knowledge of the creature I now know that the posture was unconscious.An hereditary servility, no doubt, was responsible.
"Mugridge, sir," he fawned, his effeminate features running into a greasy smile."Thomas Mugridge, sir, an' at yer service.""All right, Thomas," I said."I shall not forget you -- when my clothes are dry."A soft light suffused his face and his eyes glistened, as though somewhere in the deeps of his being his ancestors had quickened and stirred with dim memories of tips received in former lives.
"Thank you, sir," he said, very gratefully and very humbly indeed.
Precisely in the way that the door slid back, he slid aside, and I stepped out on deck.I was still weak from my prolonged immersion.A puff of wind caught me, and I staggered across the moving deck to a corner of the cabin, to which I clung for support.The schooner, heeled over far out from the perpendicular, was bowing and plunging into the long Pacific roll.If she were heading southwest as Johnson had said, the wind, then, I calculated, was blowing nearly from the south.The fog was gone, and in its place the sun sparkled crisply on the surface of the water.I turned to the east, where I knew California must lie, but could see nothing save low-lying fog-banks -- the same fog, doubtless, that had brought about the disaster to the Martinez and placed me in my present situation.To the north, and not far away, a group of naked rocks thrust above the sea, on one of which could distinguish a lighthouse.In the southwest, and almost in our course, I saw the pyramidal loom of some vessel's sails.
Having completed my survey of the horizon, I turned to my more immediate surroundings.My first thought was that a man who had come through a collision and rubbed shoulders with death merited more attention than I received.
Beyond a sailor at the wheel who stared curiously across the top of the cabin, I attracted no notice whatever.
Everybody seemed interested in what was going on amidships.There, on a hatch, a large man was lying on his back.He was fully clothed, though his shirt was ripped open in front.Nothing was to be seen of his chest, however, for it was covered with a mass of black hair, in appearance like the furry coat of a dog.His face and neck were hidden beneath a black beard, intershot with gray, which would have been stiff and bushy had it not been limp and draggled and dripping with water.His eyes were closed, and he was apparently unconscious; but his mouth was wide open, his breast heaving as though from suffocation as he labored noisily for breath.Asailor, from time to time and quite methodically, as a matter of routine, dropped a canvas bucket into the ocean at the end of a rope, hauled it in hand under hand, and sluiced its contents over the prostrate man.
