Nothing off--stead-y."
Then he left the quarter-deck and strode rapidly down to the little
group amidships. He was a tall man, with a brown, angular face, and
deep-set, rather melancholy, blue eyes. His black hair was just
beginning to gray above his temples, and several lines, caused more by
thought than age, scored his lean face.
"What have we picked up, here, anyway?" he demanded. "Stand off, and
let me look."
There was not much to see--a child in a green jersey, with blown, damp
hair and a white face.
"You tink he's dead?" A big Swede asked the question.
The mate plunged a quick hand inside the green sweater.
"No, he's not. But he's blind. Get out with that stuff, Jolak, what d'ye
think this is? Get me some brandy, somebody."
Jolak retired with the pickled cabbage he had offered as a restorative.
No one looked to see where the brandy came from on a ship where none was
supposed to be but in the medicine chest. It came, however, without
delay, and the mate opened the flask.
"Now," he said, when he had poured some of its contents down the child's
throat, and lifted him from the deck, "let me through."
The first thing of which Kirk was conscious was a long, swinging motion,
unlike the short roll of the _Dutchman_. There was also a complex
creaking and sighing, a rustling and rattling. There was a most curious,
half-disagreeable, half-fascinating smell. Kirk lay quietly on something
which seemed much softer and warmer than the bottom of the _Flying
Dutchman_, and presently he became aware of a soft strumming sound, and
of a voice which sang murmurously:
"Off Cape de Gatte
I lost my hat,
And where d'ye think I found it?
In Port Mahon
Under a stone
With all the girls around it.
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