Page:Cup of Gold-1929.djvu/79

“It’s grieving me to be hurting a fine boy that bought my breakfast,” he said. “It’s grieving me so I can’t sleep.”

“But you have not hurt me,” cried Henry. “You've brought me to the Indies where I wanted to be so badly.”

“Ah!” said Tim sorrowfully, “if only I had a religion to me like the master, I might say, '`Tis God's will,' —and then be forgetting about it. And if I had a business or position I might be talking how a man must live. But I have no religion in me at all, save only an Ave Mary or a miserere dominie in storms; and as to position, why, I’m only a poor sailor out of Cork, and it does be grieving me to hurt a boy that bought my breakfast, and me a stranger.” He was watching a long canoe that drew near to them, six strong Caribs rowing it. In the stern sat a little, nervous Englishman, whose face had not tanned with the years but had grown redder and redder until the tiny veins seemed to be running on the outside of his skin. In the little man’s pale eyes there was the light of perpetual indecision and perplexity. His canoe bumped the ship’s side and he climbed slowly aboard and went directly to the master.

“There it is, now,” cried Tim; “and you will not be thinking too badly about me, will you, Henry— seeing the grief it does me?”

The captain was shouting, “Galley boy! Oh, galley boy! Morgan! Aft!”

Henry went back to where the Englishman and the captain were standing. He was amazed when