powders too often nor yet not often enough. Mother Nolan asked for more
exact directions. She felt that she had a right to them. Pat Kavanagh
combed his long whiskers reflectively with his long fingers, gazing at
the medicine-chest with a far-away look in his pale eyes.

"I don't rightly recollect the ins an' outs o' me own case," he said, at
last, "but I has a dim picter in me mind o' how Mister Swim, the mate,
shook the powder on to me tongue every blessed time I opened me mouth to
holler. An' the b'ys let me drink all the cold water I could hold--aye,
an' never once did they wake me up when I was sleepin' quiet, not even
to give the quinine to me. An' they stowed me in blankets an' made me
sweat, though the fo'castle was hotter nor the hatches o' hell. An' when
I wouldn't stick out me tongue for the powder then they'd melt it in
whiskey an' pour it down me neck."

With this Mother Nolan had to be content. She retired to her own room,
mixed a powder in a cup of root-tea and gave it to the girl, who was
quiet now, though wide-awake and bright-eyed. Kavanagh went home,
invented a ballad about his fever in Port-o'-Spain, and wrote it upon
his memory, verse by verse--for he did not possess the art of writing
upon paper. After supper Cormick retired to the loft and his bed; but
the skipper did not touch a blanket that night. He spent most of the
time in his chair by the stove; but once in every hour he tiptoed into
his grandmother's room and listened. If he heard any sound from the
inner room when the old woman happened to be asleep he awakened her and
sent her in to Flora Lockhart. At dawn he fell asleep in his chair and
dreamed that he was the mate of a foreign-going ship, and that all he
had to do was to shake white powders on to the tongue of the girl he had
saved from the fore-top of the _Royal William_. Cormick shook him awake
when breakfast was ready. After hearing from Mother Nolan that the girl