nd in this deadly place he would die. He felt it, he
was certain of it. But I wouldn't have the heart to leave him ashore. He
had a wife and child in Sydney.

He produced his wasted forearms from under the sheet which covered him
and clasped his fleshless claws. He would die! He would die here. . . .

He absolutely managed to sit up, but only for a moment, and when he fell
back I really thought that he would die there and then. I called to the
Bengali dispenser, and hastened away from the room.

Next day he upset me thoroughly by renewing his entreaties. I returned
an evasive answer, and left him the picture of ghastly despair. The day
after I went in with reluctance, and he attacked me at once in a
much stronger voice and with an abundance of argument which was quite
startling. He presented his case with a sort of crazy vigour, and asked
me finally how would I like to have a man's death on my conscience? He
wanted me to promise that I would not sail without him.

I said that I really must consult the doctor first. He cried out at
that. The doctor! Never! That would be a death sentence.

The effort had exhausted him. He closed his eyes, but went on rambling
in a low voice. I had hated him from the start. The late captain had
hated him, too. Had wished him dead. Had wished all hands dead. . . .

"What do you want to stand in with that wicked corpse for, sir? He'll
have you, too," he ended, blinking his glazed eyes vacantly.

"Mr. Burns," I cried, very much discomposed, "what on earth are you
talking about?"

He seemed to come to himself, though he was too weak to start.

"I don't know," he said languidly. "But don't ask that doctor, sir. You
and I are sailors. Don't ask him, sir. Some day perhaps you will have a
wife and child yourself."

And again he pleaded for the promise that I would not leave him behind.
I had the firmness of mind not to give it to him. Afterward this
sternness seemed criminal; for my mind was made up. That prostrated man,
with hardly strength enough to breathe and ravaged by a passion of fear,
was irresistible. And, besides, he had happened to hit on the right
words. He and I were sailors. That was a claim, for I had no other
family. As to the wife and child (some day) argument, it had no force.
It sounded merely bizarre.

I could imagine no claim that would be stronger and more absorbing
than the claim of that ship, of these men snared in the river by silly
commercial complications, as