“Oh, no,” was the reply. “That is part of Sumatra. Our destination lies off the other bow, due east from where we are lying now.”
It was a glorious morning, and the sun at that early hour had not yet attained to its greater power. The ladies were on deck, enjoying the morning air; the soldiers were having morning parade, and looked clean and smart in their white clothes and puggarees. The sailors were giving the last touches to brass rails and cabin windows, and were coiling ropes into neat rings; and altogether the deck of the “Startler,” with its burnished guns, presented a bright and animated spectacle, every one seeming to have some business on hand.
There was a little bit bustle about the steerage ladder, where four sailors were hauling a sick man up on deck; and as soon as they had him lying in the sunshine upon a mattress, the doctor bustled up—Bob Roberts, seeing Ensign Long at hand, going up and looking on, after the two youths had exchanged a short distant nod.
“Well, Sim,” said the doctor, briskly, “how are you this morning?”
“Very—very bad, sir,” replied the invalid, a big bony-faced man, who looked very yellow.
“Put out your tongue,” said the doctor.
Private Sim put out such an enormously long tongue that Bob Roberts gave his trousers a hitch, and made believe to haul it forth by the yard, very much to the ensign’s disgust.
“That’ll do,” said the doctor, feeling the patient’s pulse, and then dropping the hand, “Now what am I to prescribe for you, Sim, eh? You feel a terrible sense of sinking, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir; terrible.”
“As if you needed strengthening food?”