"Lauritz, you young scamp, go aloft and clear the dogvane!"
They hastened to his bedside, bringing lights; pale and terrified, they gazed on the dying man, thinking it was the devil himself who spoke through him.
Sarah had cast herself down by the bedside in prayer.
Jacob Worse was completely changed; his glazed eyes were half open, and the look of pain had departed from his face; he seemed to be the self-possessed Skipper Worse of old days. The thick white hair was arranged in seemly order, and his hands lay upon the coverlet as if he had finished something.
At this, the last moment, the devil had relaxed his hold; and whilst the malady wrestled for the last time with the strong limbs of the dying man, and his brain made its last effort, a crowd of ill-defined recollections and bewildered thoughts whirled past, and a sudden vision brightened the last moments of the sufferer.
It was the vision of that celebrated return from Rio, the proudest moment of his life.
He was standing again on the deck of the Hope, a fresh north wind was blowing in the fjord, and the old brig was gliding in under easy sail.
He opened his eyes, but did not see the wan faces which had gathered around him. He saw the sun shining over Sandsgaard Bay, where the summer ripples hastened towards the shore, with the news that Jacob Worse was in the fjord.
He tried to raise his head, in order to see the better; but, sinking back upon the pillows, he muttered with a happy and contented smile:
"We come late, Herr Consul, but we come safely." And, so saying, old Skipper Worse sailed out of the world.