anterns swinging from his finger. The
light, as it reached the spot, showed us an elderly man, thick-set, and
grizzled with years; but the shifting and coarse shadows concealed from
us the expression and even the design of his face.

So soon as the cook set eyes on him he gave a sort of whistle.

"_It's only a passenger!_" said he; and turning about, made, lantern and
all, for the galley.

"He's a man anyway," cried Jones in indignation.

"Nobody said he was a woman," said a gruff voice, which I recognised for
that of the bo's'un.

All this while there was no word of Blackwood or the doctor; and now the
officer came to our side of the ship and asked, over the hurricane-deck
rails, if the doctor were not yet come. We told him not.

"No?" he repeated with a breathing of anger; and we saw him hurry aft in
person.

Ten minutes after the doctor made his appearance deliberately enough and
examined our patient with the lantern. He made little of the case, had
the man brought aft to the dispensary, dosed him, and sent him forward
to his bunk. Two of his neighbours in the steerage had now come to our
assistance, expressing loud sorrow that such "a fine cheery body" should
be sick; and these, claiming a sort of possession, took him entirely
under their own care. The drug had probably relieved him, for he
struggled no more, and was led along plaintive and patient, but
protesting. His heart recoiled at the thought of the steerage. "O let me
lie down upon the bieldy side," he cried; "O dinna take me down!" And
again: "O why did ever I come upon this miserable voyage?" And yet once
more, with a gasp and a wailing prolongation of the fourth word: "I had
no _call_ to come." But there he was; and by the doctor's order and the
kind force of his two shipmates disappeared down the companion of
Steerage No. 1 into the den allotted him.

At the foot of our own companion, just where I had found Blackwood,
Jones and the bo's'un were now engaged in talk. This last was a gruff,
cruel-looking seaman, who must have passed near half a century upon the
seas; square-headed, goat-bearded, with heavy blonde eyebrows, and an
eye without radiance, but inflexibly steady and hard. I had not
forgotten his rough speech; but I remembered also that he had helped us
about the lantern; and now seeing him in conversation with Jones, and
being choked with indignation, I proceeded to blow off my steam.

"Well," said I, "I make you my compliments upon your