“I will look in the newspaper,” said the lawyer; and having looked, he answered, “At three minutes past four.”
“When will the tide turn?” asked the dying poet.
“It keeps at full for perhaps a quarter of an hour, and then begins to ebb.”
“That gives us from now about four hours,” said the poet. “Four hours. At the turning of the tide. Four hours ... and then!”
Wasteneys lay still after this, with his eyes closed.
Presently he roused himself. “I have one more farewell to make,” he said; “will you ask them to bring me my children?...”
“Your children?” The lawyer, good friend as he was, did not at first understand.
“Yes! My children. Please have them bring me my children.”
Wasteneys’s servant, happening to come into the room at the moment, beckoned the lawyer, and explained his master’s meaning.
“Yes!” answered the lawyer, soothingly, after this informatory pause, “they shall be brought to you.”