onveyance o' the mails; an' as such, Mac, yell
note, she may rescue life at sea, but she canna tow!--she canna tow!
Yon's her night-signal. She'll be up in half an hour!'

"'Gowk!' I said, 'an' we blazin' here wi' all oor lights. Oh, Bell,
ye're a fool!'

"He tumbled off the bridge forward, an' I tumbled aft, an' before ye
could wink our lights were oot, the engine-room hatch was covered, an'
we lay pitch-dark, watchin' the lights o' the liner come up that the
Grotkau'd been signallin' to. Twenty knot an hour she came, every cabin
lighted, an' her boats swung awa'. It was grandly done, an' in the
inside of an hour. She stopped like Mrs. Holdock's machine; down went
the gangway, down went the boats, an' in ten minutes we heard the
passengers cheerin', an' awa' she fled.

"'They'll tell o' this all the days they live,' said Bell. 'A rescue at
sea by night, as pretty as a play. Young Bannister an' Calder will be
drinkin' in the saloon, an' six months hence the Board o' Trade 'll gie
the skipper a pair o' binoculars. It's vara philanthropic all round.'

"We'll lay by till day--ye may think we waited for it wi' sore eyes an'
there sat the Grotkau, her nose a bit cocked, just leerin' at us. She
looked paifectly ridiculous.

"'She'll be fillin' aft,' says Bell; 'for why is she down by the stern?
The tail-shaft's punched a hole in her, an'--we 've no boats. There's
three hunder thousand pound sterlin', at a conservative estimate,
droonin' before our eyes. What's to do?' An' his bearin's got hot again
in a minute: he was an incontinent man.

"'Run her as near as ye daur,' I said. 'Gie me a jacket an' a lifeline,
an' I'll swum for it.' There was a bit lump of a sea, an' it was cold
in the wind--vara cold; but they'd gone overside like passengers, young
Bannister an' Calder an' a', leaving the gangway down on the lee-side.
It would ha' been a flyin' in the face o' manifest Providence to
overlook the invitation. We were within fifty yards o' her while Kinloch
was garmin' me all over wi' oil behind the galley; an' as we ran past
I went outboard for the salvage o' three hunder thousand pound. Man, it
was perishin' cold, but I'd done my job judgmatically, an' came scrapin'
all along her side slap on to the lower gratin' o' the gangway. No one
more astonished than me, I assure ye. Before I'd caught my breath I'd
skinned both my knees on the gratin', an' was climbin' up before she
rolled again. I made my line fast to the rail, an'