As she did so the cabin door was slid back, and Mrs. Pottle returned, bringing with her the surgeon's mate from the sick bay--a young, callow Irishman, who was now making his first cruise. The surgeon, an old man, who had an army of children of his own at home in Rotherhithe, had attended Mrs. Thorne through her trouble, but now he was busy with those who were wounded and in the cock-pit. He could not come. The mate was very pale--too pale, thought Mrs. Tickle, for a sailor-doctor to be, even though he were smelling powder for the first time. Then, to that good lady's astonishment, as she cast her eyes on her nursing comrade, she saw that she too was very pale--was white--ghastly. And in a moment she imagined, guessed, that the ship's corporal was dead! By that freemasonry, by some telegraphic method of the eyes, which women alone know how to use, she signalled to the other to ask if such were the case, yet only to discover that she had not divined aright. Mrs. Pottle shook her head; then, seeing that the eyes of the captain's wife were wide open, she stepped behind the surgeon's mate, and from the screen of his broad back put her finger to her lip. Thereby not knowing what else she meant, Mrs. Tickle understood at least that silence was to be observed. "My husband," moaned Mrs. Thorne again now, gazing up into the dark eyes of the handsome young fellow who looked so white, "my husband--I want him." "Nay, madam," he said, even as he felt her pulse and arranged her more comfortably in the berth, "nay, not yet; the bombardment is not over." While, turning his head round, he whispered to Mrs. Pottle behind him, "You have left the cabin door open; shut it." It was well she obeyed him at once. Well that, amidst fresh discharges of the twenty-four pounders, another crash on deck and a noise which was the fall of the foremast, added to the piercing cries of the child, Mrs. Thorne could not hear nor see beyond that door. Well that it was shut immediately on the order of the surgeon's mate. For now six sailors were carrying down the after-ladder a helpless, limp body at that moment--one that was to be laid in the very next cabin to that which Mrs. Thorne was occupying. The body of Henry Thorne, with a bullet in it that had pierced the heart. And behind them came the chaplain, shaking his head sadly, yet muttering somewhat thankfully, too-- "But he made that will. He made that will. And the child is safe. Although it seems, no will was needed, yet it is as well that he should have made it." * * * * * * *