Wait let his chin fall on his breast and, with lowered
eyelids, looked round in a suspicious manner.
"Why not?" cried a voice from the shadows, "the man's all right, sir."
"I am all right," said Wait, with eagerness. "Been sick... better...
turn-to now." He sighed.--"Howly Mother!" exclaimed Belfast with a heave
of the shoulders, "stand up, Jimmy."--"Keep away from me then," said
Wait, giving Belfast a petulant push, and reeling fetched against the
doorpost. His cheekbones glistened as though they had been varnished. He
snatched off his night-cap, wiped his perspiring face with it, flung it
on the deck. "I am coming out," he declared without stirring.
"No. You don't," said the master, curtly. Bare feet shuffled,
disapproving voices murmured all round; he went on as if he had not
heard:--"You have been skulking nearly all the passage and now you want
to come out. You think you are near enough to the pay-table now. Smell
the shore, hey?"
"I've been sick... now--better," mumbled Wait, glaring in the
light.--"You have been shamming sick," retorted Captain Allistoun with
severity; "Why..." he hesitated for less than half a second.
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