On the seventh night, Dr. Franck suggested that it would be well for some one, besides the general watchman of the ward, to be with the captain, as it might be his last.  Although the greater part of the two preceding nights had been spent there, of course I offered to remain,—­for there is a strange fascination in these scenes, which renders one careless of fatigue and unconscious of fear until the crisis is passed.

“Give him water as long as he can drink, and if he drops into a natural sleep, it may save him.  I’ll look in at midnight, when some change will probably take place.  Nothing but sleep or a miracle will keep him now.  Good night.”

Away went the Doctor; and, devouring a whole mouthful of gapes, I lowered the lamp, wet the captain’s head, and sat down on a hard stool to begin my watch.  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.

“Yes, here’s Lucy,” I answered, hoping that by following the fancy I might quiet him,—­for his face was damp with the clammy moisture, and his frame shaken with the nervous tremor that so often precedes death.  His dull eye fixed upon me, dilating with a bewildered look of incredulity and wrath, till he broke out fiercely,—­

“That’s a lie! she’s dead,—­and so’s Bob, damn him!”

Finding speech a failure, I began to sing the quiet tune that had often soothed delirium like this; but hardly had the line,

    “See gentle patience smile on pain,”

passed my lips, when he clutched me by the wrist, whispering like one in mortal fear,—­

“Hush! she used to sing that way to Bob, but she never would to me.  I swore I’d whip the Devil out of her, and I did; but you know before she cut her throat she said she’d haunt me, and there she is!”