“Poor chap!” said the other sympathisingly. “Man or boy, I guess he’s had a pretty rough time of it out thaar!”
“Just so,” answered the passenger. “And it’s a wonder he’s still alive.”
“Is he? I was afraid he was gone!” said the captain.
“No, sah. Um berry much alibe, sah, yes sah,” said the steward, who, having seen many half-drowned persons before, had known how to treat the present patient properly. “See, sah, him chest rise and fall now, sah. When jus’ lilly time back um couldn’t hear him heart beat!”
It was as the man said, and a tinge of colour appeared also to steal into the thin, blanched face of the lad, or boy, who seemed even younger than the mate had said, and who looked very delicate and ill—more so, indeed, than his long exposure to the violence of the waves and the terrible peril in which he had been, quite warranted.
“He’ll come round now, I think,” said the skipper, expressing more his hopes than his actual belief; for the boy had not yet opened his eyes, and his breath only came in convulsive sighs, that shook his extended frame “fore and aft,” as a seaman would say.
“Yes, sir, he’ll do. But it was a narrow squeak for such a slim youngster.”
“So it must have been, Seth,” replied the skipper to the mate, who had last spoken. “But his time hadn’t come yet, as it had for many a brave fellow bigger and stronger than him! Look, Seth!—he’s opening his eyes now! I’m blest if they aren’t like a girl’s!”
The boy, whose lids had been previously closed, the long lashes resting on his cheek, had raised them; and the large blue orbs, fixed in a sort of wondering stare on the face of the American captain, bore out his remark in some sense, as they appeared feminine in character, although wanting in expression and intelligence more strangely.
“Seems dazed to me, Cap’en Blowser,” observed the mate.