Page:Cornelia Meigs--The island of Appledore.djvu/154

134 morning wind, matching with their pink and scarlet the colors spreading across the sky. The fresh breeze felt pleasant on Billy’s face, and made him breathe more quickly. He was weary beyond words, dead tired to the utmost  limit; but he felt that for two nights and a  day he had been living indeed. The very last vessels of the big battle fleet were still trailing  away across the horizon, and he stopped to  watch until the final line of smoke had disappeared.

He turned and went slowly up to the cottage. The old captain had revived enough to insist that he should be carried nowhere  else, and had had the force to get his own way. A doctor had already been summoned and a nurse installed, so that he would have no lack  of proper care. The doctor had finished his inspection, and was just coming out as Billy reached the doorstep.

“He certainly has had enough to kill any three ordinary men of his age,” Billy heard  him say, “but an old sailor like that is made  of iron and rubber and rhinoceros hide. I think we will pull him through.”

Billy walked on, down the path, out between the willows and along the road toward