"How did it happen, Mr. Peters, that you got well so quickly? We all thought there was danger you might die."
"It does seem kind'er queer, don't it?" and the first assistant rubbed the tip of his nose reflectively with the buff-skin. "Wa'al now, Sonny, I'd like mighty well to tell you jest how it happened; but I don't rightly know all the pertic'lars myself, although I can let in a little light if you'll promise never to tell a livin' soul."
"Of course I wouldn't tell anything which you wanted kept secret," Sidney replied.
"That's a promise, is it?" Mr. Peters asked sharply.
"Of course it is; but if it's so very much of a secret, there's no reason why you should tell me. I was only wondering how you got well so quickly, and it won't do any harm if I don't know."
"But I'd rather tell you, Sonny, though I'd feel mortally bad if Cap'n Eph or Uncle Zenas heard about it, because I'm ashamed of a part," Mr. Peters said seriously, and Sidney looked at him in surprise, failing to understand why so much of an introduction was necessary to the answering of a simple question.
"It isn't any of my business, you know, and perhaps you'd better not say any more," Sidney began, but Mr. Peters interrupted him as he softly closed the door in the floor of the lantern.
"I'm goin' to tell you the whole story, Sonny, an' it shall be a secret 'twixt you an' me. In the first place I was chafin' under the collar a good bit when I left here to go to the wreck, after Uncle Zenas had declared I shouldn't have a bite to eat till breakfast was ready. It didn't seem jest the thing for him to make me go hungry because he was set against my savin' what I could from the _Nautilus_, an' I'll leave it to you if I wasn't right?"
"He might have let you have some of the food that was already cooked," Sidney replied guardedly, not disposed to find serious fault with the cook while he was in such distress.
"Wa'al, he declared I shouldn't have the least little crumb, an' off I started on work that was as much for his benefit as my own. When I got aboard the wreck I found it was goin' to be possible to get away with a good deal more'n could be loaded into the dory, so I built a raft, an' Sonny dear, I had timber an' ropes there that would have done your heart good to see! Of course it wasn't a great while before I found out that we was likely to have a storm, an' I jest threw the stuff together in the hope of gettin' back to the ledge before the wind got too high."