HKB
the sea might do their worst, but until the actual finale came, he would sail the boat--lifting her on the swell, eluding the white hissing bulk of the following sea.
When at last the boat ran into port, the sea had gained a moral victory, but the man gave to the authorities the mortal remains of his mate to be buried decently on land.
He told me that he felt cowed--he could never face the sea again. Once before he had given up "sailorising," not then on account of his nerves, but because ambition to possess a sweet-potato patch, pumpkins and a few bananas, melons, mangoes, had got hold of him. He had taken up a piece of land, but having no money his flimsy fencing was no barrier to the wallabies, and he abandoned the enterprise to them. Now he had abandoned his beche-de-mer project, had bought wire netting to keep out the wallabies, and would make a second effort to settle down. A little net fishing would help to keep him going. "As for the sea," said he, "I have had enough--too much. It is all right while your pluck lasts, but once get a shake, and you had better give it up. And the little boat!--I broke that rail as I was getting poor Andrew's body on board. She is all right, but for that--and she's for sale!"
In an hour, having concocted some stew and baked his damper, the single-handed nerve-shaken, old sailor set sail, and I knew him no more.
Another of poor old "Yorky's" adventures is worth telling. While out on the Barrier Reef, the black crew of his beche-de-mer boat mutinied, and knocking him and his mate on the head, threw them overboard. The sudden souse into the water restored "Yorky" to consciousness, and he swam back to the cutter whence the blacks had hastily fled in the dingy. It was a desperate struggle for a one-armed man to cling to and clamber up the side of the boat, but "Yorky" has never yet failed when his life was at stake. He won the deck at last, but at the expense of a broken rib and the flesh on the best part of his side tom bare to the bones. Still dazed, he chanced to look over the side, where he saw his mate's head bobbing up and down in the water. Hard as it had been for him to save himself, it was more difficult still to rescue the body from the sharks. Frantically using rough-and-ready methods, he hauled it on board, and disposed it as decently as circumstances permitted. "Yorky," great of heart, is quite unused to the melting mood. He admits that he felt pretty bad mentally. But whatever his feelings towards his sodden mate lying there with watery blood oozing from wounds on his head, exhibiting the marks of the necessarily rough-and-ready means that had been taken for his rescue, they had to be suppressed. Wet, dizzy, and sadly battered, with little more apparent reason for the possession of the breath of life than his companion, he set sail, slipped the anchor, and steered for the nearest port. Some distance on the way, to use "Yorky's" own and sufficient words--"The dead man came to life!" Both had to submit to the restraint of hospital treatment for many weeks ere physical repairs were complete.
How is it that a one-armed man, slight in physique, whose brains have been addled by blows with billets of firewood, whose side is raw and bleeding, and who has a broken rib hampering his movements, is able to achieve feats that would be surprising if performed by a whole and stalwart individual? "Yorky" has always been a wonder, and his life a series of adventures and arduous tasks, which seem to prove that the loss of a limb has been compensated for by hardihood and resourcefulness worth a great deal more.
A BUTTERFLY REVERIE
"And laugh At gilded butterflies, and bear poor rogues Talk of Court news."