imself to comfort the brave man who had returned from
the death-in-life of chloroform.

"Bear down on our people and let my men take the boat back. I'm going to
stop all night with you, skipper."

"Well, of all the----well, there sir, if you ain't. Lord! what me and
Frank'll have to tell them if we gets home! Why, it's a story to last
ten year, this 'ere. And on this here bank, in a smack!" "Never mind
that, old fellow. Get my men out of danger."

The extraordinary--almost violent--hospitality of the skipper; his
lavishness in the matter of the fisherman's second luxury--sugar; his
laughing admiration, were very amusing. He would not sleep, but he
watched fondly over doctor and patient.

Ferrier was fortified now against certain insect plagues which once
afflicted him, and the brilliant professor laid his head on an old cork
fender and slept like an infant. He did not return until next evening;
he went without books, tobacco, alcohol, and conversation, and he never
had an afterthought about his own privations.

Frank seemed so cool and easy when his saviour left him, that Ferrier
determined to give him a last word of hope.

"Good-bye, my man. No liquor of any sort. You'll get well now. Bear up
for four days more, because I must have you near me; then either you'll
run home with me, or I'll order your skipper to take you."

Nothing that the Middle Ages ever devised could equal that suffering
seaman's unavoidable tortures during the next few days. He should have
been on a soft couch; he was on a malodorous plank. He should have been
still; he was only kept from rolling over and over by pads of old
netting stuffed under him on each side. Luxury was denied him; and the
necessities of life were scarce indeed.

Poor Frank! his sternly-tender surgeon did not desert him, and he was at
last sent away in his own smack. He lived to be an attendant in a
certain institution which I shall not yet name.

After much sleepless labour, which grew more and more intense as the
stragglers found their way up, Ferrier summarized his work and his
failures. He had treated frostbite--one case necessitating amputation;
he had cases of sea-ulcers; cracks in the hand. Stop! The outsider may
ask why a cracked hand should need to be treated by a skilled surgeon.
Well, it happens that the fishermen's cracked hands have gaps across the
inside bends of the fingers which reach the bone. The man goes to sleep
with hands clenched; as soon as he c