ng
himself to look longer at the receding boat, he turned on his heel and
walked toward the forecastle.

The water butts stood amidships, not far from the open door of the
galley. Entering the latter he found an empty saucepan. This he filled
from the cask, and then, with it in his hand, turned toward the black
hatchway. Here was the greatest test of his courage. To descend that
ladder, approach that bunk, and touch the terrible creature in it, these
were the tasks he had set himself to do, but could he?

Vaccination in those days was by no means the universal custom that it
now is. And smallpox, even now, is a disease the name of which strikes
panic to a community. The minister had been vaccinated when he was a
child, but that was--so it seemed to him--a very long time ago. And
that forecastle was so saturated with the plague that to enter it meant
almost certain infection. He had stayed aboard the brig because the
pitiful call for help had made leaving a cowardly impossibility. Now,
face to face, and in cold blood, with the alternative, it seemed neither
so cowardly or impossible. The man would die anyhow, so Thoph had said;
was there any good reason why he should risk dying, too, and dying in
that way?

He thought of a great many things and of many people as he stood by the
hatchway, waiting; among others, he thought of his housekeeper,
Keziah Coffin. And, somehow, the thought of her, of her pluck, and her
self-sacrifice, were the very inspirations he needed. "It's the duty
that's been laid on me," Keziah had said, "and it's a hard one, but I
don't run away from it." He began to descend the ladder.

The sick man was raving in delirium when he reached him, but the sound
of the water lapping the sides of the saucepan brought him to himself.
He seized Ellery by the arm and drank and drank. When at last he
desisted, the pan was half empty.

The minister laid him gently back in the bunk and stepped to the foot of
the ladder for breath. This made him think of the necessity for air in
the place and he remembered the little window. It was tightly closed
and rusted fast. He went up to the deck, found a marlin spike, and,
returning, broke the glass. A sharp, cold draught swept through the
forecastle, stirring the garments hanging on the nails.

An hour later, two dories bumped against the side of the San Jose. Men,
talking in low tones, climbed over the rail. Burgess was one of them;
ashamed of his panic, he had returne