"Nothing," said Eustace Hignett gravely, "could make me do that. Our souls have blended. Our beings have called to one another from their deepest depths, saying … There are your pyjamas, over in the corner … saying, 'You are mine!' How could I forget her after that? Well, as I was saying, we parted. Little did I know that she was sailing on this very boat! But just now she came to me as I writhed on deck…."
"Did you writhe?" asked Sam with a flicker of moody interest.
"I certainly did."
"That's good!"
"But not for long."
"That's bad!"
"She came to me and healed me. Sam, that girl is an angel."
"Switch off the light when you've finished."
"She seemed to understand without a word how I was feeling. There are some situations which do not need words. She went away and returned with a mixture of some kind in a glass.
"I don't know what it was. It had Worcester sauce in it. She put it to my lips. She made me drink it. She said it was what her father always used in Africa for bull-calves with the staggers. Well, believe me or believe me not … Are you asleep?"