Quinn was sitting by the little stove with his head untidily bandaged.
One pale, undamaged eye glared fiercely from the bandages. The woman was
seated close to the only window, sewing, and the children were playing
on the floor. All movement was arrested on the instant of the skipper's
entrance. The children crouched motionless and the woman's needle stuck
idle in the cloth. Quinn sat like an image of wood, showing life only in
that one glaring, pale eye.

"How bes ye feelin' now, Jack?" asked the visitor.

The hulking fellow by the stove did not speak, but the hand that held
his pipe twitched ever so slightly.

"Orders be orders," continued the skipper. "The lads who obeys me fills
their pockets wid gold--an' them who don't get hurt. But I bain't a hard
man, Jack Quinn. Ye did yer best to heave me over the edge o' the
cliff--an' most would have killed ye for that. Here bes wine an' meat
for ye an' the wife an' children."

He laid the bottle and tins on a stool near the woman. Quinn's glance
did not waver, and not a word passed his swollen lips; but his wife
snatched up one of the tins of meat.

"The saints be praised!" she cried. "We bes nigh starvin' to deat' wid
hunger!"

"'Twas me give it to ye, not the saints," said Black Dennis Nolan, "an'
there bes more for ye where it come from."

He turned and went out of the cabin.