“Give her something to drink,” pleaded the little boy, passionately, imagining from her silence, and the expression on her face, that she was suffering as he had and could not speak.
“She don’t want it—she’s dead!” answered Johnson.
Holdsworth half turned, but checked the exclamation that rose to his lips, feeling that the bitter truth must be made known to the child sooner or later.
The boy did not understand the answer; he crawled upon his mother’s knee, with the pannikin in his hand, which he held out whilst he said: “Wake up, mamma! Open your eyes! Mr. Holdsworth will give you something to drink.”
Holdsworth removed the child, and seated him near the mast, and bade him stop there. He then returned, and lifting the poor woman from her seat, placed her gently in the bottom of the boat, throwing her dress over her face to hide the anguish in it, and blot out the mockery of the daylight.
The boy began to cry, and asked Mr. Holdsworth to wake his mamma up.
Neither of the men could answer him.
Shortly after this, the wind veered round to the north, and came on to blow in quick, fretful puffs. The sky grew cloudy, and indications were not wanting of the approach of a gale. Holdsworth took the helm, whilst Johnson lowered the sail and close-reefed it, and the quick jump of the sea, coupled with the small space of sail shown, making it impossible for them to head for the east, without driving bodily to leeward, they slackened out the sheet and let the boat run, keeping the wind about two points on her port quarter.
A squall of rain came up and wetted them. They turned their mouths in the direction whence it came, and gaped to receive the delicious drops; but it blew against their faces and slantwise along the sea, and was soon over. It left a little pool on one of the thwarts, and Holdsworth told the boy to put his lips to it. He did so, and lapped the moisture like a dog; whilst Holdsworth and Johnson removed the handkerchiefs from their necks which the rain had damped, and sucked them.