Noll was slumped in his chair again. "Go 'way," he said, and waved his
hand. "Go 'way."
* * * * *
That night, in the small hours, Noll screamed in a way that woke the
ship; he had come out of drunken slumber, desperate with a vivid
hallucination that appalled him....
He thought that Mauger was at him with a sheath knife, and that Brander
was at Mauger's back. Faith and Dan'l fought to soothe him; Faith in her
loose dressing-gown, her hair in its thick braid.... Dan'l had more eyes
for Faith than for Noll. He had never seen her thus before; never seen
her so beautiful; never seen her, he thought, so desperately to be
desired.... His lips were wet at the sight of her....
Noll's terror racked and tore at the man; it seemed to rip the very
flesh from his bones. When it passed, at last, and he fell asleep again,
he was wasted like a corpse.
Dan'l, looking at Noll and at Faith, wished Noll were a corpse indeed.