And so, with great spirit,
and still greater patience, they managed to save quite as many as
deserved it.
Because, when they came within signal of the Gwalior, Captain
Southcombe, marching slowly with his long limp burdens, found ready on
the sand the little barrel, about as big as a kilderkin, of true and
unsullied Stockholm pitch, which he had taken, as his brother took
Madeira, for ripeness and for betterance, by right of change of climate.
With a little of this given choicely and carefully at the back of every
sick man's tongue, and a little more spread across the hollow of his
stomach, he found them so enabled in the afternoon that they were glad
to sit up in the bottom of a boat, and resign themselves to an All-wise
Providence.
Many survived, and blessed Captain Southcombe, not at first
cordially--for the man yet remains to be discovered who is grateful to
his doctor--but gradually more and more, and with that healthy action
of the human bosom which is called expectoration, whenever grateful
memories were rekindled by the smell of tar. But this is a trifle; many
useful lives were saved, and the Nation should have thanked Captain
Southcombe, but did not.
After these sad incidents, when sorrow for old friends was tempered by
the friendly warmth afforded by their shoes, a muster was held by the
Major in command, and there was only one officer who could neither
assert himself alive, nor be certified as dead.
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