Captain: Well, Patch, yer had better get yer dirk ready. I 'm uncommon sleepy. I wants ter get ter bed.
Darlin': Ketch him a deep one, Patch.
Patch: I takes it mighty kind o' you, Captain. Yer has alers been a lovin' father ter me. Joey, I 'll tell yer what yer are. Yer the kind o' feller I hates most perticerler. Yer a spy! Say yer prayers, you hissin' snake!
(He sharpens his dirk and gayly tests it on his whiskers.)
Joe: My wasted day is done. In the tempest's wrack the stars are dim and faith 's the only compass. Now or hereafter, what matters it? The sun will gild the meadows as of yesteryear. The moon will fee the world with silver coin. And all across the earth men will traffic on their little errands until nature calls them home. I am a stone cast in a windy pool where scarce a ripple shows. Life 's but a candle in the wind. Mine will not burn to socket.
Duke: He 's all wound up like a clock—jest tickin' words.
Captain: Patch, Joe is tellin' us poetical that his wick has burned right down to the bottle. Yer had better put it out, without more hesitatin'.
(And now, as they are intent for the coming blow—suddenly! quietly!—a woman's hand and arm—a claw, rather, with long, thin, shrivelled fingers—have come in sight at the window with the broken glass.
It quite terrifies me as I write. My pencil shakes. Old ladies will want to scream.
The fingers grope along the sill. They fumble on the wall. They stretch to reach the gun which stands beside the clock. Another inch and they will grasp it and Red Joe will be saved. The arm rubs against the pendulum of the clock. It swings and the clock starts to tick. And still no one has seen the terrible hand. And now the fingers are thrust blindly against the gun. It falls with a clatter on the stones. The hand and arm disappear. But Darlin' has seen the swinging pendulum and shrieks.)