you see. I tell you he was awfully hurt."

The face of Esther is again miserably expectant. There will be no
mystery of politics in it now. "I wouldn't know him, either by face or
voice, Mrs. Lockwin. He lie in the stern and Noey try to help him, but
the sea was fearful. I couldn't hear him speak. Noey--the coon
here--hear him speak.

"'Are you a-dying, old man?' I asks.

"Noey says he answer that he was."

"Yessah, h-h-he done spoke that he w-w-was."

"'Want to send some word home, old man?' says I, to cheer him up; for
don't you see, I allowed we was all in the drink--just tumble to what
an old tub she was--117 of us at the start, and we all croak but me and
the moke--the coon, I should say."

The woman is afraid to interrupt.

Suddenly the eye of Corkey moistens. He has escaped a great error. "I
didn't hear his last words, nohow."

"He said to p-p-put a st-st-stone over D-Davy's grave," says the lad

The man turns on the boy. The brows beetle. The mouth gives a
squaring movement, significant beyond words.

The listener still waits.