Naturally, I promised, and that was the last I saw of him. He was a kindly, simple, old soul and the misfortune of his people would have broken his heart, had he lived.
In a little while the "flu" began to lose its grip. Fewer and fewer died each day, and I had begun to think that the end was in sight when the white lady who was going to America came down with it. She had been tireless in her efforts to help in caring for the Javanese and I was not surprised when she fell ill. She was the only white person aboard to catch the "flu." We did everything possible for her, but she died on the second day.
As her body went overboard the captain read aloud from the Bible, choosing the passage, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." This struck me as particularly appropriate, since she had truly given her life for those Javanese. After her death the "flu" devil seemed satisfied and abandoned us. Before the end, however, we had lost more than twelve hundred of the Javanese!
The missionaries kept close to their cabins during the whole "flu" visitation, only appearing now and then on the afterdeck. They even gave this up as soon as the captain suggested that the wind might carry "flu" germs to them. In spite of their protestations, they had to eat with the rest of us or go hungry. The captain insisted on this point, since he felt that they deserved no consideration and it was also highly entertaining to watch their indignation when we all took a stiff nip of brandy with our meals. They spoke of what a great thing prohibition was for the United States, and every time they said it they would look meaningly at the Canadian and me. In fact, after the "flu" left us the missionaries varied their religious conversations by giving table-talks on the evils of liquor. I remember how shocked they professed to be when I told them how much old Labotsibeni liked her toddy and how we always brought it to her when we visited Swaziland.
When we reached Free Town, in the Barbadoes, an incident happened which was very amusing, but which these fanatics used to point out the evils of liquor. I knew some people there, and the Canadian and I went ashore and called on them. Of course there was "a party," and we enjoyed ourselves in free and easy fashion.
Now the ship lay about a mile off port, because there was not sufficient water to allow her to dock. We went ashore in rowboats and came back in the same way. The deck was reached by a thirty-foot ladder, which is not the safest sort of footing at best. On our return from the party my friend missed his step at the top of the ladder and fell plump into the sea. There were a number of boats about and he was fished out without difficulty. The captain and I regarded the mishap as a good joke on the Canadian, but at dinner that night the missionaries used it as the text for an extended discourse on the evils of strong drink.
One female missionary told us a story which led to a retort that is worth repeating.
"Forty-odd years ago three prominent Philadelphia doctors decided that drink and tobacco were the two great evils of the world," she said, "so they agreed never to touch either as long as they lived. They agreed that they would all meet after forty years and see how they compared with their drinking, smoking, dissipating friends. All lived up to the agreement faithfully. Then they met in Philadelphia as before, and were amazed to see how energetic, health-perfect, and generally superior they were to those who remained of their friends. They were now between seventy and eighty years old and yet were as active as men scores of years younger.
"This proves conclusively," she concluded, "that all the ills of old age are directly due to drink and tobacco."
Naturally, we agreed with her. This, of course, we should not have done, since the fanatic gets no pleasure unless able to argue for his creed. My Canadian friend, however, could not contain himself.