the other side the bulkhead. You
mind that knave boatswain who still scoffed and swore at thy prayers,
Elder, and so grievously flouted the first who fell sick among you?"

Brewster nodded, and Standish bringing his clenched fist down upon the
table growled,--

"I mind him so well that I've promised him a skin full of broken bones
the first time I catch him ashore."

"Then thou 'lt be glad to know that he lies a-dying to-night," replied
Jones with horrible naivete.

"Dying!"

"No question on 't; and this morning as he lay groaning in sore
distress, and calling upon one and another to wait on him, and none had
time or stomach for it, goodwife Rigdale came to the caboose for a
morsel of meat after her night's watch, and hearing him she cried,
'Alack, poor soul!' and hasted to him with the very cup she was just
putting to her own lips. The dog fastened to it, I promise you, and
drank every drop, then gazing up at her asked a bit too late,--

"'Hast any left for thyself?'

"She smiled on him with that white face she wears nowadays and said,--

"'Nay, but thou 'rt more than welcome.' Then says Master Boatswain, not
knowing that I heard him,--

"'Oh, if I was set to get over this, as well do I know I am not, I would
ask no better than to join your company and forswear all I have held
dear. For now do I see how true Christians carry themselves to each
other when they are in trouble, while we heathen let each other lie and
die like dogs.'

"So the poor wench, fit to drop as she was, knelt and began praying for
him, and I stole away."

"But do not those men care one for another in their sickness?" asked
Brewster indignantly.

"As yonder wolf tended upon the dying buck," replied Jones with a
careless laugh. "To drink his blood while it was warm was his chief
care, and my men part the gear of their dying messmates before their
eyes. Why, one of the quartermasters, Williams, thou knowest, would fain
have hired Bowman, the other quartermaster, to befriend him to the last,
and promised him all his goods if he should die, and money if he got
well; but the knave did but make him two messes of broth, and some kind
of posset to drink o' nights, and then left him, swearing all over the
ship that Williams was cozening him by living so long, and he would do
no more for him though he starved, and yet the poor soul lay a-dying
then."

"And Bowman had his goods?" demanded Howland sternly.

"Ay had he, or ever the breath was