The Will and The Way

Towards midnight there was a little commotion on the Havre to
Southampton packet boat Columbia, which was drawn up against the quay of
the French port, and already preparing for its journey across the
channel. A passenger--one of three, two men and a boy, who had lately
come aboard--had been taken so alarmingly ill with a hemorrhage from the
lungs that, in the circumstances of stiff weather which prevailed, it
seemed impossible for him to make the passage and survive. Consequently
it was resolved, after the first violence of the attack had subsided, to
re-transfer him, to the shore, where at no great distance quarters more
meet to his condition might be found. He was assisted over the gangway
by his companion, while the little boy trotted beside, sobbing noisily
between grief and terror.

The invalid, all stained and shaken as he was, looked down on, the child
with an expression which, in its anguished struggle to reassure, was as
pathetic as it was ghastly.

"All right, Bobo," he whispered; "daddy's all right really."

The effort brought a thread of new scarlet from his lips.

"Hold your silly tongue!" said the man who supported him. "I'm here to
look after you both, am I not?"