ds of Finnegan, and
sent me to you. I took him to the bay, but he won't take medicine."

Captain Blake, stern of face and kindly of eye, drew back from a
peep-hole, and asked: "What's his condition?"

"Shaky, sir. Sees little spiders and big spiders crawling round his
cap-rim. Him and the recording angel knows where he gets it and where
he keeps it, sir; but I don't. I've watched him for six months."

"Send him to me."

"Very good, sir."

The master-at-arms descended, and in a few moments the unwanted
Finnegan appeared--a gray-bearded, emaciated, bleary-eyed seaman, who
brushed imaginary things from his neck and arms, and stammered, as he
removed his cap: "Report for duty, sir."

"For duty?" answered the captain, eying him sternly. "For death. You
will be allowed the honorable death of an English seaman. You will die
in the fighting-top sometime in the next three hours."

The man shivered, elevated one shoulder, and rubbed his ear against it,
but said nothing, while Mr. Dalrymple, the navigating officer, with his
eyes at a peep-hole and his ears open to the dialogue, wondered (as he
and the whole ship's company had wondered before) what the real
relation was between the captain and this wretched, drunken butt of the
crew. For the captain's present attitude was a complete departure.
Always he had shielded Finnegan from punishment to the extent that
naval etiquette would permit.

"I have tried for six years," continued the captain, "to reform you and
hold you to the manhood I once knew in you; but I give you up. You are
not fit to live, and will never be fitter to die than this morning,
when the chance comes to you to die fighting for your country. But I
want you to die fighting. Do you wish to see the surgeon or the
chaplain?"

"No, no, no, cappen; one's bad as t' other. The chaplain'll pray and
the doctor'll fill me up wi' bromide, and it just makes me crazy, sir.
I'm all right, cappen, if I only had a drink. Just give me a drink,
cappen,--the doctor won't,--and send me down to my station, sir. I know
it's only in my head, but I see 'em plain, all round. You'll give me a
drink, cappen, please; I know you'll give me a drink."

He brushed his knees gingerly, and stepped suddenly away from an
isolated speaking-tube. Captain Blake's stern face softened. His mind
went back to his midshipman days, to a stormy night and a heavy sea, an
icy foot-rope, a fall, a plunge, and a cold, hopeless swim toward a
shadowy shi