"I'll stick to the yacht until she has accomplished her business! I'd just as soon make my vacation a week longer as not. I can cut it off somewhere else. If you are thinking about your crew, Captain, I want to say that so far as I am concerned, I am one volunteer!"
"And I am another!" said Mr. Litchfield. "Now that I know how absolutely essential it is that the _Dunkery Beacon_ should be overtaken, I would not for a moment even consider the surrender of my position upon this vessel, which I assure you, madam, I consider as an honor!"
Mr. Shirley stared in amazement at the speaker. What sort of a seaman was this? His face and hands were dirty, but he had been shovelling coal; but such speech Shirley had never heard from mariners' lips. The rest of the crew seemed very odd, and now he noticed for the first time that although many of them were in their shirt sleeves, nearly all wore black trousers. He could not understand it.
"Mr. Litchfield, sir," said a large, heavy man with a nose burned very red, a travelling cap upon his head, and wearing a stiffly starched shirt which had once been white, no collar, and a waistcoat cut very straight in front, now opened, but intended to be buttoned up very high, "I believe Mr. Litchfield has voiced the sentiments of us all. As he was speaking, I looked from one brother to another, and I think I am right."
"You are right!" cried every one of the sturdy fellows who had so recently stepped from Synod to yacht.
"I knew it!" exultingly exclaimed the speaker. "I felt it in my heart of hearts! Madam, and Captain, knowing what we do we are not the men to desert you when it is found necessary to continue the voyage for a little!"
"And what would happen to us if we did leave the yacht?" said another. "We might simply have to remain at Kingston until you returned. Oh no, we wouldn't think of it!"
"Burke," said Shirley, in a low tone, "who are these people?"
"Can't tell you now," said Burke, his eyes glistening, "you might tumble overboard backwards if I did! Gentlemen," he cried, turning to his crew, "you're a royal lot! And if any of you ever ask me to stand by you, I'll do it while there's breath in my body! And now, madam," said he, his doubt and perplexity gone and his face animated by the necessity of immediate action, "I can't now say anything about your kindness in lending us your yacht, but if you and Miss Croup want to go ashore, here is a boat alongside."