My lot below were always asking me about it, and I handed them the usual
ornamental and soothing lies, in which they believed long enough to keep
the steam up. What more could you ask of human nature? So we kept her
plugging along, getting nearer and nearer nowhere. We turned another of
those dramatic corners, later on, though I forget how much later, and
ahead of us the river was piled high with rocks, and was tumbling from
above. The _Cygnet_ had had her fair share of luck, but luck could not
get her over that. We were all looking at the white water ahead, and
feeling--at least I was--that we were being laughed at, when I heard
Purdy call me, and turned round. He was hurrying towards me round the
gear, and I thought from the look of him that this complete frustration
had turned his mind. He signed for me to follow him, and I did it,
wondering what we should do with a lunatic added to all the rest of it.
I followed him into his cabin. 'What can I do?' he said, and bent over
his berth, 'what can I do?'

"Jessie was curled up on her side in his berth, and there was nothing
anyone could do. I didn't know she was alive. But she half opened her
eyes, without looking up, and her hand began moving towards Purdy. 'That
you, Bill?' she said. Purdy flopped down beside her. I got out.

"So I took over for a bit--the mate was no good--and waited for the next
thing. That affair disheartened the men a lot, and I took it for
granted, from their faces as they stood round that figure in a tarpaulin
under a tree in the forest, that we were witnessing the end. There was
Purdy, too . . . you couldn't expect much from him after a funeral."

Hanson bent over the table, and began tapping it with a finger, and spoke
slowly through a surprise he still felt. "Old Purdy came to me the
following morning, and told me what he intended to do. What do you