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Updated: June 12, 2025
Here are all these boys; you know a good many of us, and every body that knows you half as well as I do, likes you, and we are going off now in a few hours, and some of us will never come back; and don't you care?" "Few, I fancy, think of me as you do," said the old man, in a slightly choking voice. "They call me Old Sinjin, without very much respect," grinning grimly under his mustache.
"I may as well lie down and go to sleep too," says Frank. And, very softly, so as not to awaken Mr. Sinjin, he lays himself down by his side, puts his cheek on the pillow of boughs, and keeps perfectly still. The heart of the veteran burns within him, but he makes no sign. And now hark! Patter, patter, patter. It is beginning to rain.
"Frank, do you hear me?" "What is it, Jack?" asked the sympathizing boy. "If I die, don't let me be buried on this miserable island!" "But you are not going to die," said the surgeon, kindly, cutting away the clothes from his neck. Mr. Sinjin assisted, while Frank anxiously awaited the result of the examination. The surgeon looked puzzled. There was blood, but not any fresh blood and no wound!
"He lies in a stupor, just alive." "Poor fellow!" said Mr. Sinjin, feelingly. "If Death must have one of us, let him for once be considerate, and take me. Atwater is young, just married, he needs to live; but I I am not of much account to any body, and can just as well be spared as not." "O, no, O, no!" sobbed Frank; "I can't spare you! I can't let you die!"
"And if I could be of any service to your son, it was needless for you to know of it. I was Mr. St. John when you knew me; but I am nobody but Old Sinjin now. Madam, I wish you a very good-day, and much happiness. Your servant, sir!" And shaking hands stiffly, first with Mrs. Manly, then with her husband, the strange old man stalked away.
The vexing problem, how he was to retain the watch and yet satisfy Seth's rightful claims, was thus happily solved. He could have danced for joy, barefooted, in the grassy sand. And he yearned more than ever now to see Mr. Sinjin, and make up with him. A few rods off, in the rear of the soldiers' bivouacs, the old drummer could be seen, sitting with a group of officers around a fire of their own.
Sinjin plunged in with him, and kept at his side, scrambling through mud and brush and water, and over logs and roots, in the direction of the firing. They had not gone far when they met a wounded soldier coming out. His right hand hung mangled and ghastly and bleeding at his side. A slug from a rifle musket had ploughed it through, nearly severing the fingers from the wrist.
"Jack," said he, with friendly intent, "why don't you go back and wipe out this disgrace? I would." "Because," snarled Jack, goaded by his own shame and the general contempt, "I'm hurt, I tell ye! internally, I s'pose," for he had heard Mr. Sinjin use the word, and thought it a good one to suit his case.
He remembered his watch, his insolent reply to his old friend Sinjin, the scene in the hold of the vessel, the sweet-tasting stuff, and the dizziness, a strange ladder somewhere which he had either climbed or dreamed of climbing; and he thought of his mother and sisters with a pang like the sting of a scorpion. He could bear any thing but that.
Sinjin returned to his old quarters, to the great joy of the drummer boy, whose heart burned within him at the thought of meeting his old friend once more, after their unhappy parting. They met, indeed; but the schooner was now so crowded, and such was the stir on board, that Frank scarce found an opportunity to offer the veteran his hand, and get one look out of those serious gray eyes.
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