'Ay; but of disaster we must not think. Robin will die. Yet our own case may be as bad if it comes to scuttling the ship. Cheer up, lads; many men die, but the world goes on. Poor Robin! Every man for himself and the Lord for us all. Sis will cry; but even if Robin recovers he cannot marry her: a consideration which ought to comfort her. And for him--since nothing else will serve him--it is best that he should die. Better make an end at once than go all his life with hanging head for the sake of a woman, as if there are not plenty women in the world to serve his turn.' 'I know not what ails him that he does not get better. The air is too hot for him; he hath lost his appetite. Barnaby,' I cried, moved to a sudden passion of pity such as would often seize me at that time, 'saw one ever ruin more complete than ours? Had we been fighting for Spain and the accursed Inquisition we could not have been more heavily punished. And we were fighting on the Lord's side!' 'We were--Dad was with us too. And see how he was served! The Lord, it seems, doth not provide His servants with arms, or with ammunition, or with commanders. Otherwise, the Duke this day would be in St. James's Palace wearing his father's crown, and you would be a Court physician with a great wig and a velvet coat, instead of a Monmouth cap and a canvas shirt. And I should be an admiral. But what doth it profit to ask why and wherefore? Let us first get clear of the wreck. Well; I wish we were to take Robin with us. 'Twill be a poor business going back to Bradford Orcas without him.' We waited, therefore, day after day, for Robin either to get better or to die, and still he lingered, seemingly in a waste or decline, but such as I had never before seen; and I know not what would have happened to him, whether he would have lived or died, but then there happened a thing which caused us to wait no longer. It was this. The master having, according to his daily custom, gone the round of his estate--that is to say, having seen his servants all at work under their drivers; some planting with the hoe, some weeding, some cutting the maize, some gathering yams, potatoes, cassavy, or bonavist for provisions, some attending the ingenio or the still-house--did unluckily take into his head to visit the sick-house. What was more unfortunate, this desire came upon him after he had taken a morning dram, and that of the stiffest: not, indeed, enough to make him drunk, but enough to make him obstinate and wilful. When I saw him standing at the open door, I perceived by the glassiness of his eyes and the unsteadiness of his shoulders that he had already begun the day's debauch. He was now in a most dangerous condition of mind. Later in the day, when he was more advanced in drink, he might be violent, but he would be much less dangerous, because he would afterwards forget what he had said or done in his cups.