“Physicking a sick fireman principally. The stokehold temperature was 105 degrees, and as he amused himself drinking condensed water by the quart together, the somewhat natural consequence was cramp in the stomach. They sent him up by the ash-lift, and your steward dosed him with chlorodyne and laudanum, and tincture of rhubarb. The result wasn’t encouraging.” “Oh, there’s never any knowing what to do with a sick stoker’s inside. But one of those drugs ought to have fetched him.” “Perhaps one did; but the other two didn’t seem to fit his ailment.” “Well, he had them for nothing, so I don’t see what call he had to complain. I never saw such a crew for physic. They’ve drunk that big chest half dry as it is, and if I’d let ’em, they’d have drunk it three times over. What did you do to the chap? Fill him up on the same again, or try a pill? There’s ten sorts of pills in that chest, beauties some of them. You should have tried him on those little silver-coated chaps marked C. They’re regular twisters.” “Well, you see, he was twisted enough already, poor devil, and if it hadn’t been for the donkeyman holding him, he’d have been overboard through the ash-shoot to be rid of his misery. So as it was I gave him a tumblerful of raw whisky, and that seemed gradually to untie him again out of his knots.” The captain snorted. “You’re greener than I thought, Mr. Onslow. If we’d been going on, you’d have had half the crew sick on your hands for a dose of that kind. They’re bad enough after sour, square doctor’s physic, but for a tumbler of liquor and a spell of idleness, an old sailor would have an ear and three toes cut off any day. However,” he added, rising stiffly to his feet and stretching, “the chief and donkeyman’ll see he doesn’t malinger for long. They are none of them sweet on doing another man’s work, that gang. Heigh-ho! See that line of surf we’re bringing over the lee quarter?” “The Tortugas?” “The Dry Tortugas. There’s a Yankee convict station on one of them.” “Don’t mention it.” Kettle grinned. “We shall have made enough westing soon, and then our course will be pretty nearly due north, so as to dodge the Gulf Stream as much as possible, and,” he added, in a lower tone, “to get the ship as near as may be to your channel into Florida before we jettison the crew.” “We shall run into the ship tracks from all the northern Gulf ports to Europe.” “I know, and we must take our chance of not being spotted. For a western sea there’s a regular string of traffic tailing down to the Dry Tortugas. There you are, for one. Look at that old wind-jammer.”