"It's no more than you would have done for us, if you had had the chance," he said, "therefore, thanks are entirely out of order."
"Not a bit of it," persisted the other, warmly. "It was a mighty fine thing for you fellows to do, and, believe me, I, for one, will never forget it."
By now they were in front of the fo'castle, and shouted out to the men within that they could come out with safety. There was a great noise of objects within being pulled away from the door, and then the crew of the animal ship emerged in a rather sheepish manner, for they realized that they had not played a very heroic part. However, they had had very little in the way of weapons, and perhaps their conduct might be palliated by this fact.
Two of them immediately set to work skinning the tiger, and meantime the wounded first mate of the animal ship expressed his thanks and that of the crew to Mr. Collins. Then the limping, smarting little band clambered over the side and into their waiting boat. The row back to the ship seemed to consume an age, but you may be sure that the two sailors who had escaped the conflict were now forced to do most of the hard work, and they did not even attempt to object, no doubt realizing the hopelessness of such a course.
They reached their ship at last, however, and were greeted with praise from the passengers on account of their bravery, and sympathy over their many and painful wounds.
After Mr. Collins had made his report to the captain, the latter shook his head gravely. "Perhaps I did wrong in letting you undertake such a task," he said, "but I don't know what else we could have done. Heaven knows how long it would have taken any other vessel to get here, and after they arrived they might not have had any greater facilities for meeting such a situation than we had. But I'm very glad we got out of the predicament without actual loss of life."
"We were very fortunate, indeed," agreed Mr. Collins, and here they dropped the subject, for among men who habitually followed a dangerous calling even such an adventure as this does not seem such a very unusual occurrence.
Bert was not so seriously wounded as to make it impossible to resume his duties, however, and after a few days his wounds gave him no further trouble. Needless to say, the remembrance of the desperate adventure never entirely left his mind to the end of his life, and for weeks afterward he would wake from a troubled sleep seeing again in his imagination the infuriated tiger as it had looked when leaping at the devoted group.