So Rose had ceased altogether to continue that interesting volume, which, we may presume, terminated abruptly on that night recorded in a previous chapter, when she and the doctor took a turn on deck to view the stars.
At this moment Cramply Hawkshaw entered the cabin with an expression of face so scared, so altered, and so unmistakably wretched, that Ethel surveyed him with surprise; and then, with some commiseration, she kindly inquired if he was ill?
He complained of giddiness, and abruptly hastened on deck.
In fact, our ex-Texan officer had just come from between decks, where he had been visiting the doctor's patients.
Inspired by some emotion beyond curiosity--a feeling which it would be alike impossible to define or describe, Hawkshaw had gone between decks to look at the rescued men.
A man had been left to watch them. He was Bolter, the Canadian, to whom Dr. Heriot had given strict injunctions that the sleepers were not to be disturbed to gratify the mere curiosity of the crew; and he growled out a few words by way of warning to Hawkshaw, who, assuming a jaunty air, said:
"Now, my amphibious biped, how are your patients?"
"None of your names, mister," replied the Canadian, knitting his brows.
"You mistake me, my good fellow; I simply wished to know how our new friends are."
"Judge for yourself--blow'd if I know," was the sulky rejoinder, as Bolter replaced a tremendous expectoration (which he shot fairly over Hawkshaw's shoulder and out at the lee port) by a huge quid; "but they seemed all goin' forren--out'ard bound, till the doctor hove 'em up fresh."
Each was in his hammock sleeping soundly, in that deep, drowsy torpor which enables even "the famished to escape from the pangs of hunger, and those who are perishing of thirst to escape for a time from the agony of the parched throat"--the sleep that covereth a man all over like a mantle, as honest Sancho Panza said, when, in the fulness of his heart, he blessed the great inventor thereof.
On tiptoe Hawkshaw passed from sleeper to sleeper.
One seemed a brawny and weather-beaten seaman, with grizzled locks, that were fast becoming gray; his bare and muscular chest was tattooed blue with gunpowder. This was our old friend Noah Gawthrop.