"Justice of the Peace!" echoed Ben Jope, paying no attention whatever to Mr. Sturge, but turning on Bill Adams with round, wondering eyes. "I told you he was something out o' the common. And you ain't had no more sense than to knock him over the head with a cutlass!"
"I did not," protested Bill Adams. "He took it accidental, you being otherwise engaged; an' I stuck to the creatur', thinkin' as how you wanted him."
"But why should I want him?"
"Damned if I know. If it comes to that"—Bill Adams jerked a thumb towards the hammock containing Mr. Sturge—"what d'ye want him for?"
"Oh, him?" answered Mr. Jope with a grin. "In a gale off Pernambuco—"
"What on earth are you two talking about?" asked the surgeon, who had seated himself on the deck and, with the lantern between his feet, was busily preparing a blister.
"Beggin' your pardon, sir, but you haven't been on deck yet? You haven't seen the ducks we brought aboard last night?"
"My good man, can I be in two places at once? I have been up all night with Mr. Wapshott, and the devil of a time he's given me. When they brought me this poor fellow, I hadn't time to do more than order him into hammock—indeed I hadn't. Now, then"—he stood on his feet again and addressed the marine—"fetch me a basin of water and I'll bathe his head."
"Is Mr. Wapshott bad, sir?" asked Ben Jope.
"H'm," the surgeon hesitated. "Well, I don't mind admitting to you that he was very bad indeed; but about six bells I got a draught to take effect, and he has been sleeping ever since."