While he was speaking I trembled lest this effort of energy should leave him lifeless before my eyes. But I cannot deny that there was something comforting in his willingness. I made a suitable reply, but pointed out to him that the only thing that could really help us was wind⁠—a fair wind.

He rolled his head impatiently on the pillow. And it was not comforting in the least to hear him begin to mutter crazily about the late captain, that old man buried in latitude 8° 20′, right in our way⁠—ambushed at the entrance of the Gulf.

“Are you still thinking of your late captain, Mr. Burns?” I said. “I imagine the dead feel no animosity against the living. They care nothing for them.”

“You don’t know that one,” he breathed out feebly.

“No. I didn’t know him, and he didn’t know me. And so he can’t have any grievance against me, anyway.”