My dear friends, I have
been unlucky enough to bring my children's fortune on board this ship:
here it is under my shirt. Fourteen thousand pounds! This weighs me down.
Oh, if they should lose it after all! Do pray give me a hand apiece and
pledge your sacred words to take it home safe to my wife at Barkington,
if you, or either of you, should see this bright sun set to-day, and I
should not."
"Why, Dodd, old fellow," said Kenealy cheerfully, "this is not the way to
go into action."
"Colonel," replied Dodd, "to save this ship and cargo, I must be wherever
the bullets are, and I will too."
Fullalove, more sagacious than the worthy colonel, said earnestly--
"Captain Dodd, may I never see Broadway again, and never see Heaven at
the end of my time, if I fail you. There's my hand."
"And mine," said Kenealy warmly.
They all three joined hands, and Dodd seemed to cling to them. "God bless
you both! God bless you! Oh, what a weight your true hands have pulled
off my heart. Good-bye, for a few minutes. The time is short. I'll just
offer a prayer to the Almighty for wisdom, and then I'll come up and say
a word to the men and fight the ship, according to my lights.
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