“Tell the steward to bring me some tea, then, by and by. You will go to bed?”
“I? No, my boy. I could not sleep.”
Jack was left alone with the patient save when every half-hour or so the doctor and Sir John came down from the deck to minister in some way, and the long-drawn-out night slowly passed, with poor Ned breathing painfully, and lying nearly motionless, till a faint light began to come through the cabin windows, and the distant cries of birds floated to him over the sea.
Another day was at hand, and the solemnity of the hour seemed appalling to the watcher as he rose and went to the open window. A sense of the terrible loneliness of the sea oppressed him, and, exhausted now, he felt how helpless he was, how awful and strange was the change from night to the coming of another day.
There was not a sound to be heard on deck, though he knew that there were watchers there too, but not a footfall nor a whisper could be heard.
He stood there looking at the paling stars and the faint streaks of soft light low down in the east, till the black water stretching out to the horizon grew to be of a dull leaden grey, which gradually became silvery with a peculiar sheen, and then all at once there was the tiny fiery spot high up to the right above where the reef encircled the island, which was too distant now, after the night’s steady glide away upon the current, for the breakers to be heard.
“Will he live to see the sun rise once more?” thought the boy, as the silvery sheen grew brighter on the surface of the sea, and then he started, and a great dread came upon him, for he felt that the time had come, for a faint voice said—
“Is that you, Mr Jack?”
Jack’s first thought was to call the doctor from the deck, but he did not, he stepped quickly to the couch.
“I thought it was your back, sir. I’ve been watching you ever so long. I say, hadn’t you better have the lamp lit, and let some of ’em carry me to my berth?”