He eyed me with the same suspicion as when I was suggesting treatments on the previous day. But the stubborn nature of him was giving way to a feeling of friendship and sympathy, a sympathy so noticeable in all living creatures when their material existence is in danger.
"Yes, you can look at it, if it will do you any good," holding the hand out for me to take the bandage off. "I don't mind the hand so much as I do this lump under my arm, it is so painful."
With the bandage off I was horrified to see the condition of the wound. It was turning black, and a fiery red stripe ran up the arm. He must have guessed what was going on in my mind.
"Yes," said he, "it is blood-poisoning, and a damned bad case. Don't tell me what to do for it. I have tried everything I can think of to prevent this condition."
"Let us cut it open and keep it in hot water," said I.
"Tie it up again," he replied angrily, "you are only adding insult to injury." He turned to his wife's picture which hung at the head of the bed, saying, "You understand, you understand. We may soon sail away through the silvery seas to our Land of the Midnight Sun."
I went on deck thoroughly alarmed at the Captain's condition and aware that, unless a miracle should happen within the next forty-eight hours, he would be dead of septicæmia.
We were still becalmed;—not a breath to curl the blue roll. With booms and sails swinging and wailing as she rolled and pitched in the trough of the sea, the angry gods of the Celestial World belched forth their wrath in thunder and lightning. This, coupled with the condition of the Captain, made me feel, as never before, the utter lonesomeness of the sea. It was useless, with the clouded skies, to try to get a position of the ship for drift. She had made no progress by log for twenty hours. I was anxious to know the course and speed of the current.
In going forward to see what the crew was doing, I met Olsen coming aft, holding a wet rag over his eye.
He said, "I have had trouble with Swanson, he refuses to work ship. He thinks it is not necessary to tack and boxhaul, he wants to wait for the wind."