At the sound of the voices the head on the pillow turned, and the man half opened his eyes, and groaned heavily. He was evidently in great pain,—too great for the opiates wholly to deaden.
“Look agin, Caleb; see that scar on his cheek; that’s where the Screamer hit ’im. That’s Bill Lacey.”
Caleb caught up the lantern as Captain Joe had done, and turned the light full on the dying man’s face. Slowly and carefully he examined every feature,—the broad forehead, deep-sunk eyes, short, curly hair about the temples, and the mustache and close-trimmed beard, which had been worn as a disguise, no doubt, along with his new name of Williams. In the same searching way his eye passed over the broad shoulders and slender, supple body outlined under the clinging blanket, and so on down to the small, well-shaped feet that the kneeling maid was warming.
“It’s him,” he said quietly, stepping back to the mast, and folding his arms behind his back, while his eyes were fixed on the drawn face.
During this exhaustive search Captain Joe followed every expression that swept over the diver’s face. How would the death of this man affect Betty?
With an absorbed air, the captain picked up an empty nail-keg, and crossing the deck sat down beside the mattress, his hands on his knees, watching the sufferer. As he looked at the twitching muscles of the face and the fading color, the bitterness cherished for months against this man faded away. He saw only the punishment that had come, its swiftness and its sureness. Then another face came before him,—a smaller one, with large and pleading eyes.
“Ain’t no chance for him, I s’pose?” he said to the doctor in a low tone.
The only answer was an ominous shake of the head and a significant rubbing of the edge of the doctor’s hand across the waist-line of the captain’s back. Captain Joe nodded his head; he knew,—the spine was broken.
The passing of a spirit is a sacred and momentous thing, an impressive spectacle even to rough men who have seen it so often.
One by one the watchers on the scow withdrew. Captain Joe and the doctor remained beside the bed; Caleb stood a few feet away, leaning against the mast, the full glow of the lantern shedding a warm light over his big frame and throwing his face into shadow. What wild, turbulent thoughts surged through his brain no one knew but himself. Beads of sweat had trickled down his face, and he loosened his collar to breathe the better.