“No, no,” whispered the lad excitedly. “It won’t keep. I feel as if I can’t bear to say it, and yet that I can’t bear to keep it back. There, that sounds half mad, doesn’t it? I—I—”
“Is it anything to do with what you said to me a bit ago?”
“Hah! Thank you, old fellow; you’ve made me feel as if I could say it now,” whispered the lad hoarsely. “Franky, I feel as if I’ve been an ungrateful beast to you.”
“Hold hard, Dick,” said Murray quickly; and he laid his hand upon the one lying close to the edge of the cot. “I understand how hard it must be for you to talk about it, and it’s just as hard for me to listen. So look here, Dick. You haven’t been yourself, lad; when a fellow’s a bit off his head he isn’t accountable for what he says. I know; so look here. Am I hurt and annoyed by what you said? Not a bit of it. That’s right, isn’t it?” he continued, as his hand closed firmly upon that of the half hysterical lad. “You know what that means, don’t you?”
“Hah! Yes!” sighed the lad gently; and it sounded to Murray as if a tremendous weight had been lifted off the poor fellow’s breast.
“Then now you can go to sleep, and when you wake up again I hope you will have forgotten all about it, for that’s what I mean to as a matter of course, and— How rum!” said the lad to himself, for the hand that had been returning his pressure had slowly slackened its grasp and lay perfectly inert in his. “Why, he must be asleep! Well, I shall soon know.”
As the lad thought this he loosened his own grasp, and the next minute was able to slip his fingers away. Directly after he drew back a little more, and quietly rose from the locker upon which he had been seated close to his companion’s side with his back to the cabin stairs.
Then turning to go up on deck, Murray started to find himself face to face with the doctor, who had followed the lads down and stepped in without being heard.
“Asleep?”
Murray pointed to the occupant of the cot without a word, and the doctor bent low and then drew back.