Even to get into that boat was a terrible undertaking, for the smack was showing her keel, and the wall-siders made it likely that the boat would overbalance and fall backward like a rearing horse.  Six times Ferrier had his foot on the rail ready to make his lithe, flying bound into the cockleshell; six times she was spun away like a foambell—­returning to crash against the side as the smack hove up high.  At last the doctor fairly fell over the rail, landed astride on the boat’s gunwale, and from thence took a roll to the bottom and lay in the swashing water.  Then delicately, cautiously, the skipper and his man picked their way with short, catchy strokes—­mere dabs at the boiling foam.

“God bless you,” Tom sang out, and the big fellow was touched when he heard the weak voices of the patients below, crying “God bless you!” with a shrillness that pierced above the hollow rattle of the wind, “There goes the boat up, perpendicularly as it appears.  Ah! that’s over her.  No; it’s broken aside.  What a long time she is in coming up.  Here’s a cross sea!  Ferrier’s baling.  Oh! it’s too much.  Oh! my poor friend!  Here’s a screamer!  God be praised—­she’s topped it!  Will the smack hit her?  Go under his lee if you love me.  They’ve got the rope now.  In he goes, smash on his face!  Just like him, the idiot—­Lord bless his face and him!” Thomas hung on to the rigging and muttered thus, to his own great easement.

When Ferrier got up, he said, “Skipper, only once more of that for me.  Once more, and no more after.  If a raw hand had been there we should never have lived.  Thank goodness you came!  You deserve the Albert medal, and you shall have it too, if I can do anything.”

The new patient was gasping heavily, and the whites of his eyes showed.  The skipper explained:  “You see, sir, he’s got cold through with snow-water, and he sleeps in his wet clothes same as most of us; but he’s not a strong chap, and it’s settled him.  He’s as hard as a stone all round, and sometimes he’s hot and sometimes he’s cold.”

“Has he sweated?”

“No, sir; and he’s got cramps that double him up.”

“Has he spoken lately?”

“Not a word.”

“Well now, give me every blanket you can rake up or steal, or get anyhow.”

When the blankets were brought, Ferrier said, “Now I’m going to make him sweat violently, and then I shall trap him up, as some of you say, and you must do your best to keep him warm afterwards, or else you may lose him.  When he has perspired enough you must rub him dry, with some muslin that I’ll give you, and then merely wait till he’s well.”

In that wretched, reeking hole Ferrier improvised a Russian bath with a blanket or two, a low stool, and a lamp turned down moderately low.  He helped to hold up his man until the sweat came, first in beads, and then in a copious downpour; he wrapped him up, and did not leave till the patient professed himself able to get up and walk about.  The men merely gaped and observed the miraculous revival with faith unutterable.  Then our young man bade good-bye, merely saying, “You’ll keep your berth for a couple of days, and then signal us if you want me.”