Bayard lay on the straw mattress under the photograph of Leonardo’s Christ, and thoughtfully watched Captain Hap. It was the first day that conversation had presented itself to the sick man in the light of a privilege; and he worked up to the luxury slowly through intervals of delicious silence. “Captain Hap, I am quite well now--as you see. I must speak next Sunday.” “Call it Sunday arter,” suggested Captain Hap. “It was only a scratch on the head--wasn’t it, Cap’n? And this cold. It _is_ a bad cold.” “For a cold, yes, sir; quite a cold. You see, it anchored onto your lungs; there air folks that call such colds inflammation. That there cut on the head was a beautiful cut, sir; it healed as healthy as a collie dog’s, or a year-old baby’s. We’ll have you round, now, sir, before you can say Cap’n Hap!” “Cap’n Hap?” “Well, sir?” “You’ve done something for me--I don’t know just what; whether it’s my life that’s saved, or only a big doctor’s bill.” “Ask Mrs. Granite, sir, and that there handy girl of hers; we’re all in it. You kept the whole crew on deck for a few days. You was a sick man--for a spell.” “Captain, I am a well man now; and there’s one thing I will know. I’ve asked you before. I’ve asked when I was out of my head, and I’ve asked when I was in it, and I’ve never got an answer yet. _Now_ I’m going to have it.” “Be you?” said Captain Hap. His small, dark, soft eyes twinkled gently; but they took on lustre of metal across the iris; as if a spark of iron or flint had hit them. “It is time,” said Bayard, “that I knew all about it.” “Meaning”--began the captain softly. “Meaning everything,” said Bayard impatiently. “The whole story. It’s the best thing for me. I dream about it so.” “Yes, I’ve noticed your dreams was bad,” replied the nurse soothingly. “Captain, where’s the Clara Em?” “To the bottom,” responded the fisherman cheerfully. “And the men? The crew? Her captain? Job Slip? How many were drowned? Out with it, Cap’n! I’m not very easy to deceive, when I’m in my senses. You may as well tell me everything.” “Mebbe I mought,” observed the captain. “Sometimes it’s the best way. There wasn’t but one of ’em drowned, sir,--more’s the pity.” Bayard uttered an exclamation of shocked rebuke and indignation; but the old captain sat rocking to and fro in Mrs. Granite’s best wooden rocking-chair, with the placid expression of those who rest from their labors, and are not afraid that their works should follow them. “Fellars that’ll take a new fisherman--a regular dandy like that--and smash her onto Ragged Rock, bein’ in the condition those fellars were, ain’t _worth_ savin’!” said the seaman severely. “Your treasurer here, J. B. S. Bond, he says last time he come to see you, says he: ’The whole of ’em warn’t _worth_ our minister!’” “I must speak to Mr. Bond about that,” said the young man with a clerical ring in his voice. “It wasn’t a proper thing for him to say.--Who was drowned, Captain Hap?”