if in some poisonous trap.

However, I had nearly fought my way out. Out to sea. The sea--which was
pure, safe, and friendly. Three days more.

That thought sustained and carried me on my way back to the ship. In the
saloon the doctor's voice greeted me, and his large form followed
his voice, issuing out of the starboard spare cabin where the ship's
medicine chest was kept securely lashed in the bed-place.

Finding that I was not on board he had gone in there, he said, to
inspect the supply of drugs, bandages, and so on. Everything was
completed and in order.

I thanked him; I had just been thinking of asking him to do that very
thing, as in a couple of days, as he knew, we were going to sea, where
all our troubles of every sort would be over at last.

He listened gravely and made no answer. But when I opened to him my mind
as to Mr. Burns he sat down by my side, and, laying his hand on my knee
amicably, begged me to think what it was I was exposing myself to.

The man was just strong enough to bear being moved and no more. But he
couldn't stand a return of the fever. I had before me a passage of sixty
days perhaps, beginning with intricate navigation and ending probably
with a lot of bad weather. Could I run the risk of having to go through
it single-handed, with no chief officer and with a second quite a youth?
. . .

He might have added that it was my first command, too. He did probably
think of that fact, for he checked himself. It was very present to my
mind.

He advised me earnestly to cable to Singapore for a chief officer, even
if I had to delay my sailing for a week.

"Never," I said. The very thought gave me the shivers. The hands seemed
fairly fit, all of them, and this was the time to get them away. Once at
sea I was not afraid of facing anything. The sea was now the only remedy
for all my troubles.

The doctor's glasses were directed at me like two lamps searching the
genuineness of my resolution. He opened his lips as if to argue further,
but shut them again without saying anything. I had a vision so vivid of
poor Burns in his exhaustion, helplessness, and anguish, that it moved
me more than the reality I had come away from only an hour before. It
was purged from the drawbacks of his personality, and I could not resist
it.

"Look here," I said. "Unless you tell me officially that the man
must not be moved I'll make arrangements to have him brought on board
tomorrow, and shall take the ship o