'"Suppose I had not--I mean to say, suppose I had stuck to the ship?
Well. How much longer? Say a minute--half a minute. Come. In thirty
seconds, as it seemed certain then, I would have been overboard; and do
you think I would not have laid hold of the first thing that came in my
way--oar, life-buoy, grating--anything? Wouldn't you?"
'"And be saved," I interjected.
'"I would have meant to be," he retorted. "And that's more than I meant
when I" . . . he shivered as if about to swallow some nauseous
drug . . . "jumped," he pronounced with a convulsive effort, whose
stress, as if propagated by the waves of the air, made my body stir a
little in the chair. He fixed me with lowering eyes. "Don't you believe
me?" he cried. "I swear! . . . Confound it! You got me here to talk,
and . . . You must! . . . You said you would believe." "Of course I do,"
I protested, in a matter-of-fact tone which produced a calming effect.
"Forgive me," he said. "Of course I wouldn't have talked to you about
all this if you had not been a gentleman. I ought to have known . . . I
am--I am--a gentleman too . . ." "Yes, yes," I said hastily. He was
looking me squarely in the face, and withdrew his gaze slowly. "Now you
understand why I didn't after all . . . didn't go out in that way. I
wasn't going to be frightened at what I had done. And, anyhow, if I had
stuck to the ship I would have done my best to be saved. Men have been
known to float for hours--in the open sea--and be picked up not much the
worse for it. I might have lasted it out better than many others.
There's nothing the matter with my heart." He withdrew his right fist
from his pocket, and the blow he struck on his chest resounded like a
muffled detonation in the night.
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