He sang her “Greensleeves.” He sang “As I Walked Forth.” He sang “Black-eyed Susan.” He sang close to her and quietly. She listened to him like a bird enchanted, a child. When he finished he asked her to take her turn. She said she could not, not now, she was too uneasy, but after a minute, without warning, she opened her mouth as though to speak and sang instead. “The Lass of Richmond Hill,” “A Sailor’s Life,” then “Fare Thee Well,” though in the last verse her throat was tight and from under the scarf, in the groove between cheek and nose, a tear came. Lacroix, wiping it with his thumb, said it was a good thing her eyes still did what eyes could do, that he was sure now she would see again, and soon. He said if he had wine in his hand he would drink to Rizzo.

“We will do so,” she said. “All of us together.”

This thought gave them, perhaps, ten minutes of calm, then it was back to willing the ship forward, to a kind of scratching at the interiors of their own heads. The land hung back. The sea was leisurely, indifferent, lost in a slow green dreaming of its own. He wished she would sleep. A bare six days since she had been on the table under the glass roof! What if the fever returned? Rizzo had spoken to him about it in the few minutes there had been to discuss anything. The importance of keeping her eyes clean. Clean water, water that had been boiled, perhaps with a little vinegar. Plain food, rest. The avoidance of dust and smoke, the fumes of anything. The avoidance, where possible, of whatever might agitate her, physically or mentally.

She sent him to speak to the captain again. The captain looked amused.

“Your lady is very anxious to be ashore, sir.”

“We are both,” said Lacroix.

The captain took out his watch. He flipped up the lid with a thumbnail, looked at it, looked at the set of sails, at the land. “It is five minutes before four o’clock. If we are not tied up by half past five you may tell me I do not know my business.”