He appeared to be giving orders.

"You, Sammy, cast away the lines! Look lively there! Time, time, time!"
he muttered. Then he seemed to be waiting for something and began again.

"I told you to be ready! The years, do you hear me? You are wasting the
years. She's good for sixty miles an hour and it will take forty million
years to reach the nearest star, where Helen waits. Can't make it, you
say? Don't I see her beckoning!"

Then he turned his head, slightly, as if he were addressing some one very
near.

"One has to have patience," he said. "They don't understand, and their
fingers are all thumbs, and the hawser is fouling my propeller, and
Helen calls, and--and I can do nothing."

His head, that had been slightly uplifted, fell back again, and two great
drops gathered in the dark, sunken eyes and slowly ran down the hollowed
cheeks.

Mr. Barnett turned to me. In his eyes there was a strange look of
apprehension, as when one awaits yet fears an answer. But there was
nothing that I could say to him. My heart was beating as though ready to
burst. I cared nothing then for the little man who stared at me, and sank
on my knees beside my poor unconscious John, lifting his limp hand to my
lips.