me thirty miles south of your course, if you
are a genuine British trader."

"Papers all in order, sir. First-chop wafers, as they puts on now, to
save sealing-wax. Charter-party, and all the rest. Last bills of lading
from Gravesend, but you mustn't judge our goods by that. Bulk of them
from St. Mary Axe, where Cheeseman hath freighted from these thirty
years. If ever you have been at Springhaven, Captain, you'd jump at
anything with Cheeseman's brand. But have you brought that little bag of
guineas with you?"

"Once more, we want none of your goods. You might praise them as much
as you liked, if time permitted. Show me to the cabin, and produce your
papers. After that we shall see what is in the hold."

"Supercargo very ill in best cabin. Plague, or black fever, the German
doctor says. None of our hands will go near him but myself. But you
won't be like that, will you?"

Less for his own sake than his mother's--who had none but him to help
her--Scudamore dreaded especially that class of disease which is now
called "zymotic." His father, an eminent physician, had observed and
had written a short work to establish that certain families and types
of constitution lie almost at the mercy of such contagion, and find no
mercy from it. And among those families was his own. "Fly, my boy, fly,"
he had often said to Blyth, "if you ever come near such subjects."

"Captain, I will fetch them," continued Mr. Polwhele, looking grave at
his hesitation. "By good rights they ought to be smoked, I dare say,
though I don't hold much with such stuff myself. And the doctor keeps
doing a heap of herbs hot. You can see him, if you just come down these
few steps. Perhaps you wouldn't mind looking into the hold, to find
something to suit your judgment--quality combined with low figures
there--while I go into the infected den, as the cleverest of my chaps
calls it. Why, it makes me laugh! I've been in and out, with this
stand-up coat on, fifty times, and you can't smell a flue of it, though
wonderful strong down there."

Scudamore shuddered, and drew back a little, and then stole a glance
round the corner. He saw a thick smoke, and a figure prostrate, and
another tied up in a long white robe, waving a pan of burning stuff in
one hand and a bottle in the other, and plainly conjuring Polwhele to
keep off. Then the latter returned, quite complacently.

"Can't find all of them," he said, presenting a pile of papers big
enough to taint Sahar