In the expiring, diffused twilight, and before the clouded
night dropped its mysterious veil, it was the immensity of space made
visible--almost palpable. Young Powell felt it. He felt it in the
sudden sense of his isolation; the trustworthy, powerful ship of his
first acquaintance reduced to a speck, to something almost
undistinguishable, the mere support for the soles of his two feet before
that unexpected old man becoming so suddenly articulate in a darkening
universe.
It took him a moment or so to seize the drift of the question. He
repeated slowly: 'Unusual . . . Oh, you mean for an elderly man to be the
second of a ship. I don't know. There are a good many of us who don't
get on. He didn't get on, I suppose.'
The other, his head bowed a little, had the air of listening with acute
attention.
"And now he has been taken to the hospital," he said.
"I believe so. Yes. I remember Captain Anthony saying so in the
shipping office."
"Possibly about to die," went on the old man, in his careful deliberate
tone. "And perhaps glad enough to die.
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