"Sept. 27th.--Wind has shifted to N.W. The doctor was summoned
during the night to visit one of the men taken ill two nights before.
The poor fellow died before daybreak, and I hear that another is not
expected to live until night. The doctor has only been on deck for a
few minutes to-day, and these he occupied in talk with the captain,
who seems to have caught the prevailing depression, for he has been
going about in a state of nervous disquietude all the afternoon.
I expect that want of sleep is telling upon him at last. The clasp
is still missing.
"Sept. 28th.--A rough day, and all hands busily engaged. Wind mostly
S.W., but shifted to due W. before nightfall. Three of the invalids
are better, but the other is still lying in a very critical state.
"Sept. 29th, 30th, Oct. 1st, 2nd.--Weather squally, so that we may
expect heavy seas in the Bay of Biscay. All the invalids are by this
time in a fair way of recovery, and one of them will be strong enough
to return to work in a couple of days. Doctor Concanen is still
strangely silent, however, and the captain's cheerfulness seems quite
to have left him. Oh, that this gloomy voyage were over!
"Oct. 3rd.--Weather clearer. Light breeze from S.S.W.
"Oct. 5th.--Let me roughly put down in few words what has happened,
not that I see at present any chance of leaving this accursed ship
alive, but in the hope that Providence may thus be aided--as far as
human aid may go--in bringing these villains to justice, if this
Journal should by any means survive me.
"Last night, shortly before ten, I went at Doctor Concanen's
invitation to chat in his cabin. The doctor himself was busily
occupied with some medical works, to which, as his wife assured me,
he had been giving his whole attention of late. But Mrs. Concanen
and I sat talking together of home until close upon midnight, when
the baby, who was lying asleep at her side, awoke and began to cry.
Upon this she broke off her conversation and began to sing the little
fellow to sleep. 'Home, Sweet Home' was the song, and at the end of
the first verse--so sweetly touching, however hackneyed, to all
situated as we--the doctor left his books, came over, and was
standing behind her, running his hands, after a trick of his,
affectionately through her hair, when the native nurse, who slept in
the next cabin and had heard the baby crying, came in and offered to
take him. Mrs. Concanen, however, assured her that it was not
necessary, and the girl was just going out of the door when suddenly
we heard a scream and then the captain's voice calling, 'Trenoweth!
Doctor! Help, help!'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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