“The Doctor!” exclaimed I, breaking in on him. “What Doctor? Not the master of the Haunted Island?”
“Ay,” said he, sitting up, and staring on me—his face had turned deadly pale, and his voice quavered—“but you a’n’t come from him, lad? No, no, not from him! You a’n’t. Say you a’n’t!”
“Be easy as to that,” said I. “No, I am not come from the Doctor.”
“Then how know you of him?” said he. “How? How? Never lie to me, on your soul! The Lord do the like to you if you deal falsely. Behold, I am come in the name of the Lord! In the Lord’s name!...”
But I forbear to set down the things he uttered in the frenzy-fit that thus, on a sudden, seized on him. Nor did he return again to reason; but, all night long, lay silent or raving; whilst I kept watch and ward.
Towards dawn he slept: but I dared not take any rest myself, nor leave watching of him for a moment. Indeed, the pain of my hurt served to keep me awake. In that hour, while it was yet dark, came the noise of a commotion on board the ship, being occasioned (as I learnt after) by the discovery that the jolly-boat, and I, also, were gone; and, so soon as it became light, I gladly beheld the longboat manned and making for the shore. My brother sat in the stern-sheets.
They landed below the jolly-boat, which lay high and dry, for the tide had ebbed; whereupon I hallooed to them.
“Is that you, Frank?” cried the Captain; and, when I stepped from behind the boulder and he spied me, he immediately threw himself into a great rage, or so it appeared, rushing to me, and threatening me with his fists and crying:
“What do you mean by this, you whelp, you? Do you dare to flout my orders? If you were not a boy, I would hang you up at the yard!”
I had taken this very ill, and (being in a fume from my painful and tedious vigil), had resisted and outbraved him to his face; but, from a sign which he contrived to make me, I perceived what he would be at, that this fury was all a pretence and he did it for the sake of the men. Accordingly, taking the hint, I put on a very humble, repentant bearing towards him.