"Oh, I can navigate with 'em after a fashion, but not far. How are you, Judge? Gettin' better fast, I hope."
The head on the pillow gave an impatient jerk. "Your hope is lost then. Don't waste time talking about me. I'm going to die and I know it—and before long.... There, there," as his caller uttered a protest, "don't bother to pretend, Kendrick. We aren't children, either of us, although you're a good many years younger than I am; but we're both too old to make-believe. I'm almost through. Well, it's all right. I've lived past my three score and ten and I'm alone in the world and ought not to mind leaving it, I suppose. I don't much. It's an interesting place and there are two or three matters I should like to straighten up before.... Humph! I'm the one's who's wasting the time. How are you? I don't mean how would you like to be or how do your fool friends and the doctor tell you you are—but how are you?"
Captain Sears smiled. It had been a long, long time since any one had talked to him like this. Not since he relinquished a mate's rating for that of a master. But he did not resent it; he, too, was sick of pretending.
"I'm in bad shape, Judge," he said. "My legs are better and I can hobble around on 'em, as you saw when I hobbled in here. But as to whether or not they will ever be fit for sea again I—well, I doubt it. And I rather guess the doctor doubts it, too. I don't say so to many, haven't said it to any one but you, but it looks to me as if I were on a lee shore. I may get out of the breakers some day—or I may just lay there and rot and drop to pieces.... Well, as you say, what's the use of wastin' time talkin' about me?"
"I've got a reason for talking about you, Cap'n. So you're not confined to your bed. And your head is all right, eh?"
Kendrick hesitated. He could not make out what in the world the man was driving at.
"Yes, as right as it ever was, I presume likely. Sometimes I think that may not be sayin' much."
"When a man thinks that way it is a favorable symptom, according to my experience. From what I've heard and know, Cap'n Kendrick, your head will do very well. Now there's another question. Have you got all the money you need?"
The captain leaned back in his chair. He did not answer immediately. From the head upon the pillow came a rasping chuckle.