He stood and stared at the empty floor and then
remembered and smiled. From the captain's room he took
the open case with one dozen and three bottles of gin,
put the lantern inside, and walked precariously forth.
Mac was once more conscious, his eyes haggard, his face
drawn with pain and flushed with fever; and Carthew
remembered he had never been seen to, had lain there
helpless, and was so to lie all night, injured, perhaps
dying. But it was now too late; reason had now fled
from that silent ship. If Carthew could get on deck
again, it was as much as he could hope; and casting on
the unfortunate a glance of pity, the tragic drunkard
shouldered his way up the companion, dropped the case
overboard, and fell in the scuppers helpless.
CHAPTER XXV
A BAD BARGAIN
WITH the first colour in the east, Carthew awoke and
sat up. A while he gazed at the scroll of the morning
bank and the spars and hanging canvas of the brig, like
a man who wakes in a strange bed, with a child's
simplicity of wonder.
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