he was restless, tossing his head continually, mostly with his eyes shut,
and much compressed and screwed up, but sometimes opening them; and then
they looked brighter and darker than when I first saw them. I think his
face was not at any time so stupid as at his first interview with me; but
whatever intelligence he had was rather inward than outward, as if there
might be life and consciousness at a depth within, while as to external
matters he was in a mist. The surgeon felt his wrist, and said that
there was absolutely no pulsation, and that he might die at any moment,
or might perhaps live an hour, but that there was no prospect of his
being able to communicate with me. He was quite restless, nevertheless,
and sometimes half raised himself in bed, sometimes turned himself quite
over, and then lay gasping for an instant. His woollen shirt being
thrust up on his arm, there appeared a tattooing of a ship and
anchor, and other nautical emblems, on both of them, which another
sailor-patient, on examining them, said must have been done years ago.
This might be of some importance, because the dying man had told me, when
I first saw him, that he was no sailor, but a farmer, and that, this
being his first voyage, he had been beaten by the captain for not doing a
sailor's duty, which he had had no opportunity of learning. These
sea-emblems indicated that he was probably a seaman of some years'
service.
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