“So he does. But no wonder, Seth,” replied the skipper. “Get him a drop of brandy, steward. That may bring him to himself more than he is at present.”
The steward fetched the brandy quickly in a glass, and putting it to the boy’s lips, as he raised his head from the locker on which he had been laid, made him drink a few drops, causing the faint colour to return more strongly to his face. But that was all, however, for he still gazed alternately at the captain and mate, and the steward who had just ministered to him, with the same fixed, expressionless gaze.
“He has seen death, Cap’en Blowser,” said the mate, solemnly. “I’ve noticed that same look on a chap’s face before, when he was dug out of a mine, where he had been banked up with others through its falling in, and never expected to see God’s daylight again! He’d jest that same identical expression in his eyes, though they warn’t as big nor as handsome as this poor lad’s—jest as if he was a lookin’ through you at somethin’ beyant!”
“It kinder skearts me,” said the captain, turning away from the boy with a slight shiver. “Let’s come on deck, Seth. I guess he’ll do now, with a bit of grub, and a good sleep before the stove. Mind you look after him well, steward; and you can turn him into my cot, if you like, and give him a clean rig out.”
“Yes, sah, I hear,” replied the steward, who had been trying to get some more of the spirit down the boy’s throat.
But he started up before the others left the cabin.
“Him wounded, Cap’en Blowser,” said the man in an alarmed voice. “Crikey! I nebber see such a cut!”
“Where?” exclaimed the skipper and mate almost simultaneously, turning round from the door of the cuddy and coming back to the side of the locker, on which the boy still lay stretched.
“Here,” said the steward, lifting, as he spoke, the long clustering curls of hair from the forehead of the rescued lad, and laying bare a great gash that extended right across the frontal bone, and which they must have seen before but for the encrustation of salt, from the waves washing over him, which had matted the bright brown locks together over the cut and likewise stopped the bleeding.
“Jerusalem! It is a sheer, and no mistake!” ejaculated the skipper.