But the prudent sentry answered never a word, until the ship's bell warned him of the approach of the relief guard; and then honest old Pine, coming with anxious face to inquire after his charge, received the intelligence that there was another prisoner sick. He had the door unlocked and the tailor outside in an instant. One look at the flushed, anxious face was enough.
“Who's that moaning in there?” he asked.
It was the man who had tried to call for the sentry an hour back, and Pine had him out also; convictism beginning to wonder a little.
“Take 'em both aft to the hospital,” he said; “and, Jenkins, if there are any more men taken sick, let them pass the word for me at once. I shall be on deck.”
The guard stared in each other's faces, with some alarm, but said nothing, thinking more of the burning ship, which now flamed furiously across the placid water, than of peril nearer home; but as Pine went up the hatchway he met Blunt.
“We've got the fever aboard!”
“Good God! Do you mean it, Pine?”
Pine shook his grizzled head sorrowfully.
“It's this cursed calm that's done it; though I expected it all along, with the ship crammed as she is. When I was in the Hecuba—”
“Who is it?”