Poor Eli was one. Whereby the men had scarcely reached the top afore
Cap'n Crang comes up from his cabin an' along the deck, not troublin'
to cast an eye aloft. Whereby he missed what was happenin'.
Whereby he had just come abreast of the mainmast, when--sock at his
very feet--there drops a man. 'Twas Eli, that had missed his hold,
an' dropped somewhere on the back of his skull. 'Hallo!' says the
Cap'n, 'an' where the devil might _you_ come from?' Eli heard it,
poor fellow--an' says he, as I lifted him, 'If you please, sir, from
Botusfleming, three miles t'other side of Saltash.' 'Then you've had
a damn quick passage,' answers Cap'n Crang, an' turns on his heel.
"Well, sir, we all agreed the Cap'n might ha' showed more feelin',
specially as poor Eli'd broke the base of his skull, an' by eight
bells handed in the number of his mess. Five or six of us talked it
over, agreein' as how 'twas hardly human, an' Eli such a good fellow,
too, let alone bein' a decent seaman. Whereby the notion came to me
that, as he'd come from Botusfieming--those bein' his last words--
back to Botusfleming he should go, an' on that we cooked up a plan.
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