It warn't human. A sick man has
got _some_ rights," one of the men from Boston repeated interminably. He
seemed unable to hold more than one idea at a time.
Then Blodgett would say, "Ay, it don't seem right. But we've all got to
stand by the skipper. That's how we'll serve our ends best. It don't do to
get too much excited."
I imagined that Blodgett's voice did not sound as if he were fully
convinced of the doctrine he was preaching.
"Ay," the other would return, "but they hadn't ought to 'a' called him out.
It warn't human. A sick man has got _some_ rights, and he was allers
quiet."
They talked on endlessly, while I tried in vain to sleep and while poor
Bill tossed away, getting no good from the troubled slumber that the Lord
sent him.
No sooner, it seemed to me, did I actually close my eyes than I woke and
heard him moaning, "Water--a--drink--of--water."
The others by then had left him, so I got up and fetched water, and he
muttered something more about the "pain in his innards." Then my watch was
called and I went on deck with the rest.
For the most part it was a day of coarse weather. Now intermittent squalls
from the southwest swept upon us with lightning and thunder, driving before
them rain in solid sheets; now the ship danced in choppy waves, with barely
enough wind to give her steerage-way and with a warm, gentle drizzle that
wet us to the skin and penetrated into the forecastle, where blankets and
clothing soon became soggy and uncomfortable.
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