"The crew's number was halved, and when somehow we crawled from under the sheets of rain, one mast fallen and one more ruined, the broken bodies with still some life numbered eleven. A ship's infirmary holds ten, and the overflow goes to the brig. The choice of who became my mate was between the man most likely to live, figuring that he could take the harder situation more easily than the others, and the man most likely to die, figuring that it would probably make no difference to some one that far gone. The choice was made, the latter choice, and the next morning they carried Cat in and laid him beside me on the straw while I slept. His spine had been crushed at the pelvis and a spar had pierced his side with a hole big enough to put your hand into. "When he came to, all he did was cry--not with the agonized howls I had given the day before when I watched the mast topple, but with a little sound that escaped from clenched teeth, like a child who doesn't want to show the pain. It didn't stop for hours, and such a soft sound, it burned into my gut and my tongue deeper than any animal wailing would. "The next dawn stretched copper foil across the window and reddish light fell on the straw, the board floor, and the filthy, crumpled blanket they had laid him in. The crying had stopped and was replaced now by a gasped breath, sharp every few seconds, irregular, loud. I thought he must be unconscious, but when I kneeled to look, his eyes were opened and he stared straight into my face. 'You ...' he said to me with the next gasp. 'It hurts ... You ...' "'Be still,' I said. 'Here, be still.' "The next word I thought I heard was water, but there wasn't any in the cell. I should have realized that the ship's supplies had probably gone for the most part overboard. But by now, hungry and thirsty myself, I could see it as nothing less than a stupendous joke when one slice of bread and a single tin cup of water were finally brought and embarrassedly and silently handed in to us about seven that morning. "Nevertheless, I opened his mouth and tried to pour some of it down his throat. They say a man's mouth and tongue turn black from fever and thirst after a while. It's not true. The color is the deep purple of rotten, shriveled meat. And every taste bud on the dead flesh was tipped with that white stuff that gets in your mouth when your bowels are upset. He couldn't swallow the water. It just dribbled over the side of his mouth that was scabbed with purple crust. "He blinked his eyes and once more got out, 'You ... you please ...' and then he began to cry again. "'What is it?' I asked. "Suddenly he began to struggle and got his hand into the breast of his torn tunic and pulled out a fist. He held it out toward me and said, 'Please ... please ...' "The fingers opened and I saw three gold coins, two of whose histories suddenly leapt into my mind like stories of living men.