The dawn awoke Johnson, who remained seated for some time motionless, with his open eyes fixed upon the sea half-way to the horizon. As he continued gazing, a wild smile of joy kindled up his face and parted his cracked lips into a grin so extravagant, so indescribable, that it converted his face into a likeness of humanity as repulsive and unreal as an ugly paper mask.
He thrust his bony fingers into Holdsworth’s collar and shook him violently, whilst he pointed to the sea with his right hand.
“Look! look!” he cried. “Wake up! wake up! there is the land! See the houses, master! and the trees!... O Jesus! how green they are! Wake up, I say!”
Holdsworth started up violently and shook himself, with a mighty effort, clear of the benumbing torpor that had weighed him down throughout the night. He stared in the direction indicated by Johnson, then rubbed his eyes furiously with his knuckles, and stared again, but could see nothing but the ocean growing blue under the gathering light in the east, and stretching its illimitable surface to the horizon.
“Come, master, let’s get the oars out. Why, where have we drifted? O Lord, see the trees! how green and beautiful! I reckon there’s water there—and I’ll strip and souse in it! Will they see us? Wave your hat!”
He took off his own and brandished it furiously. But all on a sudden he let fall his arm—he stretched his head forward, and his glassy eyes seemed to protrude from their sockets; his breath went and came shrilly through his open mouth; and then, giving a scream, he shrieked, “It’s gone! it’s gone!” and as if the disappointment were a blow dealt him by some heavy instrument, he gave a great gasp, collapsed, and fell like a bundle of rags from his seat.
The fit of convulsive trembling that had seized Holdsworth passed; he caught sight of the boy lying on his side, with his eyes, wide open, fixed upon his face. The child was pointing to his throat. Holdsworth raised him and laid him along the seat, not conceiving that the little creature had fallen from his resting-place during the night, but that he had placed himself in that position the better to rest his limbs.
He moistened his lips with rum, but on looking attentively at his face, perceived indications denoting approaching death as clearly as though the piteous message was written upon his brow. This perception gave him exquisite misery. The bright eyes of the child, suggesting sweet memories of the little wife he had left at Southbourne, had endeared the boy to him; he had been his playmate and companion on the “Meteor;” he had watched the deep and beautiful love of the mother; and her death, recent as it was, had imparted the deepest pathos to the little orphan, and made his claims upon Holdsworth’s protection and love infinitely eloquent and appealing. That he should be dying now—now that the bright sun was climbing the brilliant morning sky—dying for want of a cup of water, a morsel of bread—dying without a mother’s love to enfold him in his last struggle and waft his young and innocent soul to God on the wings of a prayer, such as her agony, her devotion only could dictate—oh, it was too pitiful!
“My little boy—look up!—tell me—do you suffer? Where is the pain? Is it in your throat? Oh my poor innocent!”
His tears blinded him. He took his handkerchief and dipped it into the sea and laid it upon the child’s throat.