Poor stupid old Bill!
When he appeared, Blodgett had him by the arm to help him.
"You sojering, bloody fool," Kipping cried; "do you think I'm so blind I can't see through such tricks as yours?"
A murmur of remonstrance came from the men, but Kipping paid no attention to it.
"You think, do you, that I ain't on to your slick tricks? Take that."
Bill never flinched.
"So!" Kipping muttered. "So! Bring him aft."
Though heavy seas had blown up, the squalls had subsided, and some of the men, for the moment unoccupied, trailed at a cautious distance after the luckless Bill. We could not hear what those on the quarterdeck said; but Blodgett, who stood beside me and stared into the darkness with eyes that I was convinced could see by night, cried suddenly, "He's fallen!"
Then Captain Falk called, "Come here, two or three of you, and take this man below."
Old Bill was moaning when we got there. "Sure," he groaned, "I've got a rolling—howling—old Barney's bull of a pain in my innards." But when we laid him in his bunk, he began to laugh queerly, and he seemed to pretend that he was talking to his little wee girl; for we heard him saying that her old father had come to her and that he was never going to leave her again.