Herrick was embarrassed; the silken brutality of their visitor made him blush; that he should be accepted as an equal, and the others thus pointedly ignored, pleased him in spite of himself, and then ran through his veins in a recoil of anger.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s only California; it’s good enough, I believe.”
Attwater seemed to make up his mind. “Well, then, I’ll tell you what: you three gentlemen come ashore this evening and bring a basket of wine with you; I’ll try and find the food,” he said. “And by the by, here is a question I should have asked you when I came on board: have you had small-pox?”
“Personally, no,” said Herrick. “But the schooner had it.”
“Deaths?” from Attwater.
“Two,” said Herrick.
“Well, it is a dreadful sickness,” said Attwater.
“’Ad you any deaths?” asked Huish, “’ere on the island?”
“Twenty-nine,” said Attwater. “Twenty-nine deaths and thirty-one cases, out of thirty-three souls upon the island.—That’s a strange way to calculate, Mr. Hay, is it not? Souls! I never say it but it startles me.”
“O, so that’s why everything’s deserted?” said Huish.