“Bet yer!” replied Ebenezer with enthusiasm.  Keziah, after more expostulation, went back to the parsonage, where the puddings were made and seasoned with tears and fervent prayers.  She wrote to Grace and told her the news of the San Jose, but she said nothing of the minister’s part in it.  “Poor thing!” sighed Keziah, “she’s bearin’ enough already.  Her back ain’t as strong as mine, maybe, and mine’s most crackin’.  Well, let it crack for good and all; I don’t know but that’s the easiest way out.”

The sick sailor grew no better.  Days and nights passed and he raved and moaned or lay in a stupor.  Ebenezer acted as day nurse while Ellery slept, and, at night, the minister, being younger, went on watch.  The doctor came frequently, but said there was no hope.  A question of time only, and a short time, he said.

Capen occupied his mind with speculations concerning the patient.

“Do you know, parson,” he said, “seem’s if I’d seen the feller somewheres afore.  ‘Course I never have, but when I used to go whalin’ v’yages I cruised from one end of creation to t’other, pretty nigh, and I might have met him.  However, his own folks wouldn’t know him now, would they? so I cal’late I’m just gettin’ foolish in my old age.  Said his name’s Murphy, them ha’f-breeds did, didn’t they?  I know better’n that.”

“How do you know?” asked Ellery, idly listening.

“‘Cause when he’s floppin’ round on the bed, out of his head, he sings out all kinds of stuff.  A good deal of it’s plain cussin’, but there’s times when he talks respectable and once I heard him say ‘darn’ and another time ‘I cal’late.’  Now no Irishman says that.  That’s Yankee, that is.”

“Well, he ought to know his own name.”

“Prob’ly he does—­or used to—­but ’most likely he don’t want nobody else to know it.  That’s why he said ‘twas Murphy and, bein’ as he did say it, I know ’tain’t it.  See my argument, don’t you, Mr. Ellery?”

“Yes, I guess so.”

“Um—­hm!  Why, land sakes, names don’t mean nothin’ with seafarin’ men.  I’ve seen the time when I had more names—­Humph!  Looks kind of squally off to the east’ard, don’t it?”

That night the sick man was much worse.  His ravings were incessant.  The minister, sitting in his chair in the living room, by the cook stove, could hear the steady stream of shouts, oaths, and muttered fragments of dialogue with imaginary persons.  Sympathy for the sufferer he felt, of course, and yet he, as well as Dr. Parker and old Capen, had heard enough to realize that the world would be none the worse for losing this particular specimen of humanity.  The fellow had undoubtedly lived a hard life, among the roughest of companions afloat and ashore.  Even Ebenezer, who by his own confession, was far from being a saint, exclaimed disgustedly at the close of a day’s watching by the sick bed:  “Phew!  I feel’s if I’d been visiting state’s prison.  Let me set out doors a spell and listen to the surf.  It’s clean, anyhow, and that critter’s talk makes me want to give my brains a bath.”