It ain't nothing." "He seemed a hundred years old at least.

I never saw him properly because he was gone ashore and out of sight when I came on deck in the morning; but he gave me the notion of the feeblest creature that ever breathed.

His voice was thin like the buzzing of a mosquito.

As it would have been cruel to demand assistance from such a shadowy wreck I went to work myself, dragging my chest along a pitch-black passage under the poop deck, while he sighed and moaned around me as if my exertions were more than his weakness could stand.

At last as I banged pretty heavily against the bulkheads he warned me in his faint breathless wheeze to be more careful.
"What's the matter ?" I asked rather roughly, not relishing to be admonished by this forlorn broken-down ghost.
"Nothing! Nothing, sir," he protested so hastily that he lost his poor breath again and I felt sorry for him.