"It would take a better man than you," he snarled. "Not it, though you are bigger and stronger," I cried. "Get up, and I'll show you." "Get up," he groaned, "while I'm so weak and bad that I can't stir?" "Can't stir," I said, as I realised how thoroughly the doctor had read him, and I understood now why Mr Frewen was so indifferent instead of being sympathetic. "Why, there's nothing the matter with you at all. You can move as well as I can. Get up, sneak!" "Oh!" he groaned, "you're as great a brute as the doctor," and he turned up his eyes till only the whites showed, making him look so ghastly in the dim light, that I was ready to fancy I was misjudging him after all. But I recalled his manner and his utterance as soon as he had made sure that the doctor had gone, and thought himself quite alone. "Get up," I said again, "and leave off this miserable shamming. There's nothing the matter with you at all." He groaned again, and it made me feel so angry at the thought of his believing that he could impose upon me again, that I raised my right foot, whose toes seemed to itch with a desire to kick him. "Get up!" I cried angrily again. "I can't, I can't!" he groaned. "Get up," I said, "or I'll lie down by you and punch your head that way!" "Oh, you coward, you coward!" he moaned. "No, it's you who are the coward, shamming being injured. Will you get up?" "What," he snarled, changing his manner again, "to fight with a miserable coward who is armed?" "I'm not armed now," I cried, snatching the revolver I carried from my belt, and laying it on Mr Preddle's chest. "Get up, you miserable, cowardly, treacherous, shamming impostor! I'll give you some physic which will do you more good than the doctor's." As I spoke, I gave him a heavy push with my foot. He sprang from the bunk as if he had been suddenly galvanised, made a rush at me, and struck out with all his force, but I darted on one side, and he struck the bulk-head with his fist. "Poor fellow, how weak he is!" I said, as I stood on my guard, and writhing now with bodily as well as mental pain, he came at me looking almost diabolical.