“We were making for Rio, but Mr. Ross stood out,” he said. “A relief’s expected, and I guess there are some law-sick folk on board her. He treated us like dirt, and began to talk of rafting. Do you know what rafting is, doctor—no, well, it’s putting living men overboard on a raft as big as a deal board and wishing ’em good luck while they go. Don’t try it while you can sail saloon. Colin Ross fell sick of a fever and is down below raving now. We got the arms by tickling the mate’s whiskers and promising him Ross’s berth. That was the first and the last of it. We shot ’em down like sheep, and now we’re going ashore to spend our money—those that live, though they’re like to be few enough.” Here was a truth beyond all question. I stood on the deck of a veritable plague ship. A wail of death rose unceasingly. Night had come down, and a thick white mist enveloped the ocean all about us. The yacht was nowhere to be seen. Of all the hours of that great endeavour, this, to me, was the most terrible, alike in its menace and its suggestion. For I said that the yacht might lose me in the fog and leave me, the prisoner of these desperate men, and their hostage against the justice which awaited them. CHAPTER XXIX. THE BRIDGE AND AFTERWARDS. _Dr. Fabos Visits Colin Ross._ I was in a situation of grave peril; but it would have been imprudent beyond measure to have admitted it. Possibly the accident of their advantage did not occur to the men, nor had they discovered it. There was no order on the ship, no commander, no person in authority above others. The agony of wounds forbade any consideration of that which should be done or of the methods of doing it. I perceived that the men regarded me in some sense as their good angel, paying me the compliment of trusting me, and obeying my commands as faithfully as if I had been their captain. They could even remember that I had gone fasting, and speak of food and drink. “Old Valentine knew a good tap when he tasted it, and there’s plenty of the right sort on board,” the American said to me good-naturedly. “You only give a name to it and the corks will be flying like rockets. Ask for what you’re wanting, doctor, and I’ll skin the lubber who doesn’t run to fetch it. The Lord knows what my mates would have done if you hadn’t come among them.” It was honestly said, and as honestly meant. And yet, willingly as I would have accepted his cordial offer, fear of the consequences held me back. Who would dare to think of drink amid such a crew as this, or to remind men that drink was to be had? I could depict a Saturnalia defying the powers of a Poe to describe, such an orgie as a sane man might dream of in a horrid sleep, should these ruffians broach the casks or be reminded of the spirits which the ship carried.