"Shipbuilders are awful fools to make such little round windows," but, as I said it, I felt all the time that the little iron-framed circular window that could be screwed up, air and water-tight, had been the saving of many a ship in rough seas. "Hadn't you better drink some water?" I said next, as I saw him pass his dry tongue over his parched lips. "Please," he said feebly; and, as I took the glass of water, passed my arm under his head to hold him up and let him drink, I said to myself-- "You cowardly, treacherous brute!--the bullet ought to have killed you, or we should have let you drown." "Hah!" he sighed, as, after sipping a little of the water and swallowing it painfully, he began taking long deep draughts with avidity, just as if the first drops had moistened his throat and made a way for the rest. "Have another glass?" I said abruptly. He bowed his head, and I let him down gently; though, as I thought of Miss Denning, her brother, and the burning ship, I felt that I ought to let him down with as hard a bump as I could. I filled the glass again, and once more lifted him and let him drink, scowling at him all the time. "There," I thought, as I laid him back again, "that's enough. You'll soon die, and I don't want to have the credit of killing you with kindness." He looked at me piteously, and his lips moved, but I could not grasp what he said. "Wound hurt?" I asked. He bowed his head. "Sure to," I said. "It'll be ever so much worse yet." He bowed his head again. "Look here," I said gruffly, "why don't you speak, and not wag your head like a mandarin in a tea-shop?" He looked at me reproachfully, and his lips moved again. "Is the ship still burning?" he said faintly, and evidently with a great effort. "Yes, I s'pose so," I replied. "It wasn't out when I came away. Arn't you glad?" "Glad?" he said with a groan. "Oh, well, it was all your doing. Feel proud, don't you?" His eyes gazed fully in mine, and their lock said plainly, "I'm weak, helpless, and in misery. I'm full of repentance too, now. Don't, don't, pray, cast my sins in my face." But somehow my tongue seemed to be out of my control. I wanted to take pity on him, and to do all I could to make his position more bearable, but all the time I kept on attacking him with the sharpest and most bitter reproaches.