I muttered some incoherent words, to which she did not attend, but went on hurriedly: "Rockingham has thrown himself overboard in a hysterical fit, brought on by the heat. The sailors heard the splash--" "I know they did." This escaped me unawares, and I instantly prevaricated, "I have been told about that." "Do you know that Herbert is ill?" I could have conscientiously answered this question affirmatively also. Her sudden sympathy for human misadventure jarred upon me, as it had done once before, when I thought of the ostensible object of the cruise. I said harshly: "Then Rockingham is at rest, and your brother is on the road to it." It was a brutal speech. It had a very different effect to that which I intended. "True," she said. "But think of the awful consequences if, now that Rockingham is gone, Herbert should be seriously ill." "I do think of it," I said stiffly. Indeed, I could hardly keep from adding that I had provided for it. "You must come to him at once. I have faith in you." This gave me a twinge. "I have no faith in Percival" (the ship's doctor). "You are nursing your brother?" I said with assumed carelessness. "Of course." "What is Percival giving him?" She described the treatment, and as this was exactly what I myself would have prescribed to put my own previous interference right, I promised to come at once, saying: "It is quite evident that Percival does not understand the case." "That is exactly what I thought," Natalie agreed, leading me to Brande's cabin. I found his vitality lower than I expected, and he was very impatient. The whole purpose of his life was at stake, dependent on his preserving a healthy body, on which, in turn, a vigorous mind depends. "How soon can you get me up?" he asked sharply, when my pretended examination was over. "I should say a month at most." "That would be too long," he cried. "You must do it in less." "It does not depend on me--" "It does depend on you. I know life itself. You know the paltry science of organic life. I have had no time for such trivial study. Get me well within three days, or--" "I am attending." "By the hold over my sister's imagination which I have gained, I will kill her on the fourth morning from now." "You will--_not_." "I tell you I will," Brande shrieked, starting up in his berth. "I could do it now." "You could--_not_." "Man, do you know what you are saying? You to bandy words with me! A clod-brained fool to dare a man of science! Man of science forsooth! Your men of science are to me as brain-benumbed, as brain-bereft, as that fly which I crush--thus!" The buzzing insect was indeed dead. But I was something more than a fly. At last I was on a fair field with this scientific magician or madman. And on a fair field I was not afraid of him. "You are agitating yourself unnecessarily and injuriously," I said in my best professional manner. "And if you persist in doing so you will make my one month three."