Some one held the bottle to his lips and wiped the blood away from his face again.
“My God!” shouted a bystander, gruffly. “‘Tis William Brooke, of the Cottages.”
“Yes. ‘Tis me,” said the man, sitting up again. “Not that arm, mate; don’t ye touch it. ‘Tis bruk. Yes; ‘tis me. And ‘The Last Hope’ is on the tail of the Inner Curlo—and the spar that knocked me overboard fell on the old man, and must have half killed him. But Loo Barebone’s aboard.”
He rose to his knees, with one arm hanging straight and piteous from his shoulder, then slowly to his feet. He stood wavering for a moment, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and spluttered. Then, looking straight in front of him, with that strange air of a whipped dog which humble men wear when the hand of Heaven is upon them, he staggered up the beach toward the river and Farlingford.
“Where are ye goin’?” some one asked.
“Over to mine,” was the reply. “A’m going to my old woman, shipmets.”
And he staggered away in the darkness.