whether he would fire Long Tom, trusting that his own comrades might come first to help him, was, of course, more than I could say.
Yet I felt sure that I could trust him in one point, since in that our interests jumped together, and that was in the disposition of the schooner. We both desired to have her stranded safe enough, in a sheltered place, and so that when the time came, she could be got off again with as little labor and danger as might be, and until that was done I considered that my life would certainly be spared.
While I was thus turning the business over in my mind I had not been idle with my body. I had stolen back to the cabin, slipped once more into my shoes and laid my hand at random on a bottle of wine, and now with this for an excuse, I made my reappearance on the deck.
Hands lay as I had left him, all fallen together in a bundle, and with his eyelids lowered as though he were too weak to bear the light. He looked up, however, at my coming, knocked the neck off the bottle like a man who had done the same thing often, and took a good swig, with his favorite toast of "Here's luck!" Then he lay quiet for a little, and then, pulling out a stick of tobacco, begged me to cut him a quid.
"Cut me a junk o' that," says he, "for I haven't no knife, and hardly strength enough, so be as I had. Ah, Jim, Jim, I reckon I've missed stays! Cut me a quid as'll likely be the last, lad; for I'm for my long home, und no mistake."
