‘Back again already! And I’ve been absent from San Diego for at least six months, and thinking they felt like six years! When did I arrive? Why, this evening! The “Trevelyan” dropped anchor exactly at six o’clock, and directly I could get away, I came up to see you.’
‘It is very good of you, and my father will be delighted to see you. I expect him in every minute. Sit down, Captain Norris, whilst I mix the medicines for these poor women, who are anxious to get to their homes again, and then I will hear all your news.’
She looked so cool and collected as, having dismissed her patients, she drew a chair to the table and sat down beside him, that Captain Norris did not know where to begin. He was a fine handsome young man, with dark eyes and hair; the skipper of a merchant vessel, and every inch a sailor; and he was very much in love with Lizzie Fellows. He carried several neatly tied up parcels in his hands, but he was too nervous to allude to them at once.
‘I am sorry to find you have fever in the island,’ he said, by way of a commencement.
‘Oh, it is terrible—a regular plague!’ replied Lizzie; ‘and though my father has worked early and late amongst the negroes, we have lost patients by the dozen. It is sickening to hear of the numbers of deaths, and to witness the trouble;—enough to break one’s heart.’
‘But you keep well?’ he inquired anxiously.
‘Oh, yes! Nothing ever ails me! I have too much to do, and no time to be ill. But I am very sad, and somewhat disheartened.’
‘Mr Courtney must have experienced a great loss.’
‘Yes! His plantation is sadly thinned, but the deaths have been chiefly amongst the children. Mr Courtney is very good to them, and spares no expense to provide them with comforts. It is no one’s fault. It is the will of God, and we must wait patiently till He removes the scourge. But there is great distress, and even starvation, amongst the native population in other parts of the island, and some degree of insubordination.’
‘And how is Mr Courtney’s beautiful daughter?’