[Mr. Thompson, at one time second mate of the whaling ship The Two Brothers, was telling his three nieces the story of his last voyage in that ship. At Singapore, on her way home from the South Seas, she had taken on board, as passengers, a Mr. Williams and his wife and daughter. Mr. Williams had been working for twenty years among the Papuans as missionary. On the homeward voyage they had been blown down by a hurricane among the Malay Islands, and had been attacked by the Malays, but had beaten them off. Having told the story of that engagement, Mr. Thompson went on—]
The breeze for the next ten days was steady and favourable. We were fairly on our way now, and began to hope that our ill-luck was at an end, and that we were going to make a fast and comfortable homeward run. Ten days after we had left the island the look-out reported a sail. We were taking a slight breeze along with us, and we came up fast to the ship, which was lying becalmed.
"What can she be doing, Mr. Wilson?" the captain said. "She has got nothing above her topsails, although she must see that we are bringing down a breeze with us."
"Can't make her out, sir," Mr. Wilson replied. He fetched a glass from the companion and raised it to his eye. "Her ensign's reversed, sir," he exclaimed. "She is in distress somehow."
We bore down to her, and the skipper threw the barque up into the wind within a hundred yards of her. Till we got close we could not see a soul on deck, but now a head appeared above the bulwark.
"What's the matter with you?" the captain shouted.
"We have got fever on board. The captain and both mates are dead. There are only seven of us left alive, and two of them have got it. For God's sake help us!"
The men had shown themselves brave enough in their fight with the Malays, but standing as they were by the bulwark, watching the strange ship, there wasn't one but shrank back when he heard that hail. And well they might, for when the Indian fever gets on board a ship there is no saying what may come of it. There were white faces on the poop too, and I reckon that there wasn't one of us who didn't feel a cold thrill run through him.
"What's to be done?" the captain said in a low voice, more as if he was asking the question of himself than us.
At first no one spoke, and then Mr. Williams said: