With this thought his mother's dear face smiled into his vision.
"Mother mine, mother mine," he murmured, and his eyes closed in exhaustion.
It was dusk when Emily awoke in the lounge. By the silver watch she saw that it was a quarter past six o'clock. All was quiet as when she lay down. The bark was in the same dead calm. The creaking of the gear overhead and the slatting of the idle sails were the only sounds in the stillness. She stole below, and on her way forward paused at the door of the derelict's room. He still slept. She tiptoed inside and wet his lips with a sip of water. He murmured in unconscious thankfulness. She hurried on then toward the engine room. Paul must be there or in the galley. She came upon him lying across the main hatch. He was asleep, his head pillowed on his right arm. The light of a love that would never die came into her eyes as she stood for a second listening to his deep breathing of honest weariness.
The chill of the coming night was in the air. Emily stole aft again on tiptoe and returned with a blanket. She spread it over the sleeper with a mother's gentleness. He did not move. Sighing, she turned away and with the silence of a thief went to the galley to prepare the evening meal.
CHAPTER XXVI
Coming down from aloft, where he had gone immediately after dinner to reef and furl the topgallant sails as best he could, Emily met Paul with the news that the derelict seemed to be recovering a glimmer of consciousness.
"When I carried a cup of beef extract to him just now he was awake," she told Paul. "He seemed not at all surprised to find a woman attending him. He thinks he is in a hospital somewhere—that I am a nurse. When I asked him his name he answered: 'Number 19—cot 19, nurse.'"
"Did you ask him anything about the Daphne?"
"Yes; but neither the vessel's name nor Captain McGavock's nor any of those you told me were in the log book meant anything to him. His only answer to all my questions was, 'Nurse, if the captain comes in before "lights out" tell him I'd like to see him.' He's an Irishman, I should say—a kind sort of an old soul, with a rare, musical brogue."