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Updated: April 30, 2025
"It's awkward. However, here's my necktie. It an't strong, but it's better than nothin'." Gaff was about to take it off when Graddy recovered suddenly and attempted to rise. The others sprang on him and held him down; but they did so with difficulty, for he was still very strong. All that night did they sit and hold him, while he raved and sang or struggled as the humour seized him.
She was obliged to run to Liverpool for repairs. The captain, whose name was Graddy, and who was one of the most ill-favoured and ill-mannered men that Gaff had ever set eyes on, agreed to take the newcomer to England on condition that he should work his way besides paying for his rations. There was something about this vessel which was very offensive to the critical eye of Gaff.
Poor Billy's horror at the prospect before him was much aggravated by the fierce and brutal manner of Graddy, and he would fain have gone and hid his face in his father's bosom; but he had been placed at the helm while the two were pulling, so he could not forsake his post.
"I should think we're five hundred miles from the nearest land," said Graddy, "in a nor'-east direction, an' there's no islands that I know of between us an' South America, so we may just pull about for exercise till the grub's done, an' then pull till we're dead." The captain burst into a loud, fierce laugh, as if he thought the last remark uncommonly witty.
The others fled right and left, as Frank sprang forward and recovered his weapon all save the one whose unhappy lot it had been to assault Joe Graddy, and who was undergoing rapid strangulation, when Frank ran to his rescue. "Have mercy on him, Joe!" he cried.
Frank thanked him; but being too much fatigued to mount guard, he and Graddy, with his Yankee friend Jeffson, slept together, rolled in their blankets, with pistols in their hands and the water-bottles attached to them.
Next day the sun rose in a cloudless sky, and all day it shone upon them fiercely, and the wind moderated enough to render baling unnecessary, but still they did not dare to haul in their floating bulwark. Extreme thirst now assailed them, and Graddy began in an excited state to drink copiously of salt water. "Don't go for to do that, cap'n," remonstrated Gaff.
A derisive laugh was the only reply. Presently Graddy arose, and going into the head of the boat, took up the baling-dish and again drank deeply of the sea-water. "Ha! ha!" he laughed, tossing his arms wildly in the air, and gazing at Gaff with the glaring eyes of a maniac, "that's the nectar for me. Come, boys, I'll sing you a ditty."
When morning at last broke, father and son were so much exhausted that they could scarcely sit up, and their cramped fingers clung, more by necessity than by voluntary effort, to the garments of the now dying man. Graddy was still active and watchful, however. His face was awful to look upon, and the fire of his restless eyes was unabated.
"If this had been my first experience o' them there diggin's," said Joe Graddy, as he smoked his pipe that night in the chief gambling and drinking store of the place, "I would have said our fortin wos made, all but.
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