A Terrible Coward | Page 6

you been about?"
"There can't be much over," said the man who was helping; "she was all right just now. There's a fish in it, and a big one."
"Don't talk such foolery, Zekle Wynn," said the master. "I tell 'ee half the net's overboard."
"How can she be overboard when she's nigh all in the boat?" said the man savagely.
"Zekle's right," cried Mark Penelly, who was hauling away excitedly; "there's a big fish in it. Look! you can see the gleam of it down below."
"Well, don't pull a man's nets in like that, Mas'r Mark!" said the other, now growing interested and hauling steadily in; "nets cost money to breed." [Note. Cornish. Making nets is termed "breeding."] "Why, it's a porpoise, and a good big 'un too! Steady, lads; steady! She's swum into the net that trailed overboard. Steady, or we shall lose her! Here, hold on, lads, and I'll get down into the boat and--haul away!" he roared excitedly, as he had made out clearly what was entangled in the net. "Quick, lads! quick! It's a man! It's--my word if it ar'n't young Harry Paul!"
The net was drawn in steadily over the roller at the lugger's side, till Penelly and the master could lean down and grasp the arms of the drowning or drowned man, whom they dragged on board, and then, not without some difficulty, freed from the net that clung to his limbs. He had struggled so hard that he had wound it round and round him, and so tight was it in places that, without hesitation, the master pulled out his great jack-knife and cut the meshes in three or four places.
"You can get new nets," he said hoarsely, "but you couldn't get a new Harry Paul. There's some spirit down in the cabin, Zekle. Quick, lad, and bring the blanket out of the locker, and my oilskin. Poor dear lad! he must have got tangled as he was swimming round. I'll break that Zekle's head with a boat-hook for this job; see if I don't."
The threatened man, however, came just then with the blanket and spirits, when everything else was forgotten in the effort to restore the apparently drowned man. Mark Penelly worked with all his might, and after wrapping Paul in the blanket and covering him with coats and oilskins, some of the spirit was trickled between his clenched teeth, and the men then rubbed his feet and hands.
"Get out the sweeps, lads. There's no wind, and we must get him ashore. Poor dear lad! If he's a drowned man, Zekle Wynn, you've murdered him!"
"I tell 'ee I didn't let no net trail overboard," cried the man angrily, as he seized a long oar and began to tug at it, dropping it into the water every time with a heavy splash.
"Don't stand talking back at me!" roared the master, seizing another oar and dragging at it with all his might, "pull, will 'ee? pull!"
"I am a-pulling, ar'n't I?" shouted back the other, as the man and lad, who formed the rest of the crew, each got an oar overboard and began to pull.
"Yes, you're a-pulling, but not half pulling!" roared the master, as if his man were half a mile away instead of close beside him.
Plenty more angry recrimination went on as all tugged at the long oars, and the lugger began to move slowly through the water towards the little harbour; but if Harry Paul's life had depended upon the services of the doctor at Carn Du he would never have seen the sun rise on the morrow's dawn. But as it happened, the warmth of the wrapping, the influence of the spirit that had been poured liberally down his throat, and the chafing, combined with his naturally strong animal power to revive him from the state of insensibility into which he had fallen, and long before they reached the granite pier of the little harbour his eyes had opened, and he was staring in a peculiarly puzzled way at Mark Penelly, who still knelt beside him in the double character of medical man and nurse.
"Eh! lad, and that's right," cried the master in a sing-song tone; "why, we thought we was too late. How came 'ee to get twisted up in the nets like that?"
Harry Paul did not answer, but lay back on the heap of what had so nearly proved to be his winding-sheet, trying to think out how it was that he had come to be lying on the deck of that fishing lugger, with those men whom he well knew apparently taking so much interest in his state.
For all recollection of his swim and the conversation that had preceded it had gone. All he could make out was that Mark Penelly, who was never friendly to him, was now kneeling by