ense like a
mosquito. Even the watch lay somewhere snugly out of sight.

For some time we observed something lying black and huddled in the
scuppers, which at last heaved a little and moaned aloud. We ran to the
rails. An elderly man, but whether passenger or seaman it was impossible
in the darkness to determine, lay grovelling on his belly in the wet
scuppers, and kicking feebly with his outspread toes. We asked him what
was amiss, and he replied incoherently, with a strange accent and in a
voice unmanned by terror, that he had cramp in the stomach, that he had
been ailing all day, had seen the doctor twice, and had walked the deck
against fatigue till he was overmastered and had fallen where we found
him.

Jones remained by his side, while O'Reilly and I hurried off to seek the
doctor. We knocked in vain at the doctor's cabin; there came no reply;
nor could we find anyone to guide us. It was no time for delicacy; so we
ran once more forward; and I, whipping up a ladder and touching my hat
to the officer of the watch, addressed him as politely as I could--

"I beg your pardon, sir; but there is a man lying bad with cramp in the
lee scuppers; and I can't find the doctor."

He looked at me peeringly in the darkness; and then, somewhat harshly,
"Well, _I_ can't leave the bridge, my man," said he.

"No, sir; but you can tell me what to do," I returned.

"Is it one of the crew?" he asked.

"I believe him to be a fireman," I replied.

I dare say officers are much annoyed by complaints and alarmist
information from their freight of human creatures; but certainly,
whether it was the idea that the sick man was one of the crew, or from
something conciliatory in my address, the officer in question was
immediately relieved and mollified; and speaking in a voice much freer
from constraint, advised me to find a steward and despatch him in quest
of the doctor, who would now be in the smoking-room over his pipe.

One of the stewards was often enough to be found about this hour down
our companion, Steerage No. 2 and 3; that was his smoking-room of a
night. Let me call him Blackwood. O'Reilly and I rattled down the
companion, breathing hurry; and in his short-sleeves and perched across
the carpenter's bench upon one thigh, found Blackwood; a neat, bright,
dapper, Glasgow-looking man, with a bead of an eye and a rank twang in
his speech. I forget who was with him, but the pair were enjoying a
deliberate talk over their pipes. I