cts, or that they'd all get eaten by cannibals, or die of something
nasty. I admit I tried to frighten her.

"'It's no good, Doctor,' she said. 'You can't worry me. I've got my
work to do in this ship, like the others.'

"'Pooh!' I said to her. 'Cooking and that. Anybody could do it. Let
the men do it. It's not a woman's job.'

"'You're wrong,' she said. 'It's mine. You don't know.'

"I began to get annoyed with this stubborn creature. I told her she
would die, if she didn't leave the working of that ship to those who
ought to do it.

"'Who ought?' she asked me, in a bit of a temper. 'I know what I have to
do. I'm going through with it. It's no good talking. I'll take my
chance, like the rest.'

"So I had to tell her that I was there because the master of her ship had
sent for me to give my advice. My business was to say what she ought to
do.

"'I don't want to be told. I know,' she said. 'The captain sent for
you. Talk to him.'

"My temper was going, and I told her that it was something to know the
captain himself had enough sense to send for me.

"'Look here,' she told me. 'I've had enough of this. I want to be
alone. Thank you for troubling to come over.'"

The doctor lifted his shoulders, and made a wry face, that might have
been disdain or pity.

"I was leaving her, but she called to me, and I went back. She held out
her hand. 'I do thank you for troubling about me. Of course I do. But
I want to stay on here--I must.'

"'Well, you know the penalty,' I said. 'I was bound to tell you that.'

"'What of it?' she said, and laughed at me. 'We musn't bother about
penalties. Good-bye!'

"I must say she made me feel that if the skipper of that ship had been of
different metal, she might almost have pulled him through. But what a
man. What a man! I saw his miserable little figure standing not far
from where my boat was when I was going. He made as if he were coming to
me, and then stopped. I was going to take no notice of him, but went up
and explained a thing or two. I'll bet he'll remember them. All he said
was: 'I was afraid you'd never change her mind,' and turned away. What a
man! There was a pair for you. I could understand him, but what could
have been in her mind? Whatever made her talk like that? That's the way
of it. There's your romance of the tropics, and your squalid Garden of
Eden, when you know it. A monotonous and dreary job, and a woman."

The land