CHAPTER XXXIV
"CAPTAIN COLENSO"
"But what be us to do with the balloon, sir?" the coxswain demanded.
Had it been my affair I believe I should have obeyed a ridiculous impulse and begged them to keep it for their trouble; so weary was I of the machine. Byfield, however, directed them to slit a seam of the oiled silk and cut away the car, which was by this time wholly submerged and not to be lifted. At once the Lunardi collapsed and became manageable; and having roped it to a ring-bolt astern, the crew fell to their oars.
My teeth were chattering. These operations of salvage had taken time, and it took us a further unconscionable time to cover the distance between us and the brig as she lay hove-to, her maintopsail aback and her head-sails drawing.
"Feels like towing a whale, sir," the oarsman behind me panted.
I whipped round. The voice—yes, and the face—were the voice and face of the seaman who sat and steered us; the voice English, of a sort; the face of no pattern that I recognised for English. The fellows were as like as two peas, as like as the two drovers, Sim and Candlish, had been: you might put them both at forty; grizzled men, pursed about the eyes with seafaring. And now that I came to look, the three rowers forward, though mere lads,
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