“There’s not a man a-board as’ll think that o’ Dick Darvall,” growled the boatswain, who had just entered and heard the last remark.
“Right, bo’s’n,” said Brooke, “you have well expressed the thought that came into my own head.”
“Have ye seen Samson yet, sir?” asked the boatswain, with an unusually grave look.
“No; I was just going to inquire about him. No worse, I hope?”
“I think he is, sir. Seems to me that he ain’t long for this world. The life’s bin too much for him: he never was cut out for a sailor, an’ he takes things so much to heart that I do believe worry is doin’ more than work to drive him on the rocks.”
“I’ll go and see him at once,” said our hero.
Fred Samson, the sick man referred to, had been put into a swing-cot in a berth amidships to give him as much rest as possible. To all appearance he was slowly dying of consumption. When Brooke entered he was leaning on one elbow, gazing wistfully through the port-hole close to his head. His countenance, on which the stamp of death was evidently imprinted, was unusually refined for one in his station in life.
“I’m glad you have come, Mr Brooke,” he said slowly, as his visitor advanced and took his thin hand.
“My poor fellow,” said Charlie, in a tone of low but tender sympathy, “I wish with all my heart I could do you any good.”
“The sight of your kind face does me good,” returned the sailor, with a pause for breath between almost every other word. “I don’t want you to doctor me any more. I feel that I’m past that, but I want to give you a message and a packet for my mother. Of course you will be in London when you return to England. Will you find her out and deliver the packet? It contains only the Testament she gave me at parting and a letter.”