"'I don't,' she said. She was quiet enough, but she seemed a very wilful woman. 'I've got my job here.'
"I told her that the skipper of her ship would never carry out his orders, because they could not be carried out. I told her, what was perfectly true, that their craft would rot on a sandbar, or find cataracts, or that they'd all get eaten by cannibals, or die of something nasty. I admit I tried to frighten her.
"'It's no good, Doctor,' she said. 'You can't worry me. I've got my work to do in this ship, like the others.'
"'Pooh!' I said to her. 'Cooking and that. Anybody could do it. Let the men do it. It's not a woman's job.'
"'You're wrong,' she said. 'It's mine. You don't know.'
"I began to get annoyed with this stubborn creature. I told her she would die, if she didn't leave the working of that ship to those who ought to do it.
"'Who ought?' she asked me, in a bit of a temper. 'I know what I have to do. I'm going through with it. It's no good talking. I'll take my chance, like the rest.'
"So I had to tell her that I was there because the master of her ship had sent for me to give my advice. My business was to say what she ought to do.
"'I don't want to be told. I know,' she said. 'The captain sent for you. Talk to him.'
"My temper was going, and I told her that it was something to know the captain himself had enough sense to send for me.