The captain lay with his
hot, haggard face turned toward me, filling the air
with his poisonous breath, and feebly muttering,
with lips and tongue so parched that the sanest
speech would have been difficult to understand.
Robert was stretched on his bed in the inner room,
the door of which stood ajar, that a fresh draught
from his open window might carry the fever-fumes
away through mine. I could just see a long, dark
figure, with the lighter outline of a face, and, having
little else to do just then, I fell to thinking of
this curious contraband, who evidently prized
his freedom highly, yet seemed in no haste to
enjoy it. Doctor Franck had offered to send him on
to safer quarters, but he had said, "No, thank
yer, Sir, not yet," and then had gone away to
fall into one of those black moods of his, which
began to disturb me, because I had no power to
lighten them. As I sat listening to the clocks from
the steeples all about us, I amused myself with
planning Robert's future, as I often did my own,
and had dealt out to him a generous hand of
trumps wherewith to play this game of life which
hitherto had gone so cruelly against him, when a
harsh, choked voice called,--
"Lucy!"
It was the captain, and some new terror seemed
to have gifted him with momentary strength.
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