“My dear fellow—you may depend on me,” replied Brooke earnestly. “Where does she live?”
“In Whitechapel. The full address is on the packet. The letter enclosed tells all that I have to say.”
“But you spoke of a message,” said Brooke, seeing that he paused and shut his eyes.
“Yes, yes,” returned the dying man eagerly, “I forgot. Give her my dear love, and say that my last thoughts were of herself and God. She always feared that I was trusting too much in myself—in my own good resolutions and reformation; so I have been—but that’s past. Tell her that God in His mercy has snapped that broken reed altogether, and enabled me to rest my soul on Jesus.”
As the dying man was much exhausted by his efforts to speak, his visitor refrained from asking more questions. He merely whispered a comforting text of Scripture and left him apparently sinking into a state of repose.
Then, having bandaged the finger of a man who had carelessly cut himself while using his knife aloft, Charlie returned to the cabin to continue an interrupted discussion with the first mate on the subject of astronomy.
From all which it will be seen that our hero’s tendencies inclined him to be as much as possible “all things to all men.”