‘I have come to talk to you,’ said the doctor, very sternly. ‘I don’t understand your presence in this ship. Your explanations to the captain and to myself are not sufficient, and are unsatisfactory so far as they go.’ And then he began to question me. Who was I? What was my age? Would I swear that I was going to Tasmania to seek some relations? Would I swear that my name was Simon Marlowe? By this time my blood was on fire again, and, weakened as I was by what I had passed through, I might guess the old flashing lights were in my eyes as I looked at him. ‘I’ll tell you this much about myself,’ said I, stepping up to him and swelling my breast and tossing my head after my fashion when I was in a rage: ‘my father was a sailor, and I know enough of the sea to inform you that the master is the only head and authority which the people on board need recognise. You are not the master of this vessel. What right have you to come here and talk to me as you do, and to insult me as you lately did in the hearing of others, with your doubts as to my honesty and my motives for leaving home and the rest of it?’ He gazed at me in silence with the utmost astonishment. Indeed, he looked crestfallen. His lips lay apart in a sort of yawn of wonder, but he quickly recollected himself, as you will suppose of a man who, as I afterward learned, had made several voyages in charge of convicts, and was used to felons. His face darkened with temper, but his self-mastery was fine, and there was no passion in his tones. ‘You do not understand. You are insolent and ignorant, though you are educated and refined, and altogether superior to the situation in which you have placed yourself. On this I base my suspicion and I must have the truth. I am supreme in this ship. The captain obeys my orders. This is a Government ship, and you are subject to my discipline.’ He then began to question me afresh very deliberately. But I observed that he no longer insisted upon my swearing that my name was Simon Marlowe and so on; and indeed it was wonderful that so sensible a man should ask questions which only a fool would put; for, let me have answered him as I might, would he have believed me? I struggled with my temper and replied to him; now and again I would not answer, and he passed on. Once he threatened to bring me to the gangway, by which he meant that he would order me to be flogged; I folded my arms when he said that and looked him in the eyes. He continued to question me very sternly nevertheless; demanded full particulars of my coming on board; asking whether I had travelled directly from my home wherever it might be, or loitered at Woolwich before hiding in the vessel. I told him I had stayed a short time at Woolwich. ‘Are you acquainted with any one of the convicts on board this ship?’ he exclaimed, bursting out with this question abruptly, as though to catch me unawares.