Cannoning against the rigging on the port side, he was caught up in the belly of the mizzen-top sail, which slightly stopped the impetus of his descent, but, the concussion broke his spine, and when I, pale, trembling, and almost as lifeless as he, coming down from aloft, I hardly know how, reached his side, the doctor, who was bending over him and applying stimulants, said he had only a few moments longer to live.
The chaplain, too, was there, having been hastily summoned from his duties of instructing the young middies in the wardroom; as also was the commodore, with a graver face on him than I had ever seen before.
I don’t know whether he heard my step, or the cry I ejaculated when the doctor spoke of his approaching end.
Whatever it was, something made my dying shipmate open his eyes just then, his glance wandering round the circle of those near.
“What is it, my poor lad?” asked the chaplain kindly, stooping down, so as to hear better any request he might make. “Is there anything you would like done or said for you?”
He was thinking, good man, no doubt, of offering up a prayer.
But the mind of Moses Reeks—to call him by his right name, and drop the somewhat opprobrious sobriquet by which I have hitherto styled the poor fellow, and by which, indeed, he was always known on board—was still bent on things terrestrial; though, possibly, his motive might have been as high and had as divine a source as anything the chaplain might have intended to say!
His eyes lighted on me and their wandering ceased.
“Coom here, lad,” he whispered very faintly, so very faintly that his lips seemed to give out no sound at all. “Coom here!”
I heard, though, and went to his side, listening earnestly, for I could not speak.