A silence followed the outburst and Emily tiptoed into the alleyway. She listened for Paul, but no sound came from him aft. She had been below about an half-hour. He must be asleep.
The gold woman entered the derelict's door softly and discovered him sitting upright in his berth, peering from under his two hands as if at something a long distance away. There was an heroic suggestion in the posture of him and in the set of his scraggly white-bearded jaw.
"She's clear—clear," came from him in a tired whisper as Emily crossed the threshold. He dropped his hands. "Hello, nurse," he said, discovering the girl. She turned up the light.
"You're feeling much better, aren't you?" she asked very tenderly.
She held a glass of water to his lips and he drained it.
"Thankee, nurse, thankee. Another long drink, please. That's—Ah! That's good. My coppers is hot. Thankee. I'll be comin' out o' drydock soon. All I needs is t' get my head gear overhauled an' these ribs spliced. Nurse, sailormen orter have good hackmatack knees for ribs." A faint smile of humor rippled across his face. "It's a mighty long way from a fore-uppertawps'l yard t' th' foc'sle head—a mighty long way."
The listener gathered that the old man believed he was suffering from the effects of a fall. He lay back obediently at her suggestion. His eyes appeared quite rational. Although his hands were still scorching to the touch there had been an abatement of the fever. Yet his pulse was extremely weak. When Emily felt it she was surprised at the strength of his voice.
"Nurse," he said, after a short pause, "when that 'ere sky pilot comes roun' in th' mornin' I wants you t' stand by." A twinkle danced in his sea-bleached blue eyes. "He says th' sea gives up its dead. I'll be after askin' th' gentleman how he knows. Ye'll hear him shputter at that. It'll be a fair joke. A fair——"
He stopped seriously. His gaze sought the doorway. In a whisper fraught with a note of bitter fatalism he said:
"Th' sea gives nothin' back, nurse. When it takes annythin' it kapes it. Th' sky pilots are but pretindin'."