"Coffin? Danny Coffin?" he repeated, in a voice that, as it lost its
wondering quaver, grew tense and wicked and wheedling.
Captain Coffin's face twitched, and it seemed to me that his eyes,
though rigid, expanded a little. But they stared into the stranger's
face without seeing him.
The fellow crouched a bit lower, and still lower, as he drew close
and thrust his face gradually within a yard of the old man's.
"Shipmate Danny--messmate Danny--tip us a stave! The old stave,
Danny!--
"'And alongst the Keys o' Mortallone!'"
As his voice lifted to it in a hoarse melancholy minor (times and
again since that moment the tune has put me in mind of sea-birds
crying over a waste shore), I saw the shiver run across Captain
Coffin's face and neck, and with that his sight came back to him, and
he bounced upright from the settle, with a horrible scream, his hands
fencing, clawing at air.
The prisoner dropped back with a laugh. Mr. Goodfellow, at a choking
sound, put out a hand to loosen Captain Coffin's neckcloth; but the
old man beat him off.
"Not you! Not you! Harry!"
He gripped me by the arm, and, ducking his head, fairly charged me
past the 'longshoremen and out through the doorway into the street.
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