He had both hands up to his mouth when she reached him. With red, inflated cheeks, and a seemingly prodigious exercise of strength, he was in a whisper proclaiming, “Ship ahoy!” He dared not say it aloud, for it was Captain Fordyce who was coming slowly up the stair, his head bent, his handkerchief twisted loosely in his fingers.
The instant his eyes were raised the boy dropped his hands, and stood before him sober and respectful.
Captain Fordyce looked at him, and as the handsome youth had become Nina’s almost inseparable companion, he asked, “Where is my wife, Dacy?”
“I think she must be hiding from you, sir. She was here until she saw you coming.”
“Here I am,” said Nina, coming forward.
“I have got a cinder in my eye, will you take it out?” inquired her husband, stepping out on deck and handing her his handkerchief.
Dacy had followed them, and looked on with interest as Nina warily chased a tiny piece of coal about her husband’s inflamed eyelid.
“You should have some flaxseed,” he said, critically; “that is the best way to get anything out of the eye. You put in one or two grains, and they swell and emit a sticky substance which covers your eyeball, and takes in the cinder or whatever has got in. Then you just wash the whole thing out, and you haven’t irritated your membrane.”
“A good scheme,” said Captain Fordyce, “but unfortunately there is no flaxseed here. Ah! there it is,” and he held up a jagged cinder.
“Whew! that’s a large one,” exclaimed the boy, pityingly; “why, sir, you’ve been carrying about a stoker in your eye.”