“And it will send them off to sleep?”
“Into a sleep so deep that it would be impossible to awaken them for some hours.”
“Ugh!” I ejaculated, as I took the little packet and thrust it into my pocket. “I hope, if ever you give me any physic, you’ll be careful not to give me any out of the wrong bottle.”
“I’ll take care,” he said. “Mind you warn Mr Brymer to be very careful too.”
I nodded and went out of the cabin, took a turn along the deck to see that the men were keeping watch by the forecastle-hatch, and then turned in at the galley to say a word or two to the cook, asking him what we were to have for our dinner. I went straight back to where Mr Brymer was down in the captain’s store-room with a lantern, by whose light I could see before me two of the large well-known drum-shaped tins of portable soup.
“Got it?” he said in a whisper.
I handed him the packet without a word.
“Look here,” he said. “There are two kinds, with blue label and yellow label. You see I shall put the stuff in the yellow labelled tin.”
“Yes, I see,” I replied; and he opened the packet, shook out the contents, so that it lay spread on the top of the brown-looking gluey meat essence, and then stirred it well round with a knife, till it could not help being well mixed.
“There, we must chance that,” he whispered, “but it seems a very small dose.”