"We can't do any more for him than we are doing now."
He added this as he saw her wince and the glint of pitying tears come into her eyes.
"His heart is very weak," he went on, after a slight pause. "He seems to be in a bad mooring ground. He's burnt up as if he had been through a fiery furnace. It may sound strange to hear one speak of the sea as a fiery furnace, but it is. It can burn a man's soul out of him just as it can freeze it out. And—mock him with bitter waters he cannot drink."
There was a world of bitterness in his tone as he finished speaking and left the room to go aft to the medicine chest. He returned with some spirits of nitre to find Emily placing a wet pack across the derelict's forehead. He mixed a dose of the tincture in a tumbler of water and dropped some of the fluid between the cracked lips.
"This will help to pull the fever down," he explained. "It's all I could find back there—this nitre. He will need watching and attention to-night. If this calm holds I will slip in here now and again."
A low moan escaped from the stranger.
"Come, little woman. Let us leave him now."
Paul put up a hand to turn down the light.
"No, I am going to stay and do what I can for him, Paul."
"But, Emily, this—this is no work for you. You——"