Just then the hospital man returned with a glass of something for which
Doctor McCrea had sent him.
"Drink this," ordered the surgeon.
Truax obeyed.
"Now, in a few minutes, you ought to feel better," urged the surgeon, after the man in the berth had swallowed a sweetish drink.
Did he? Feel better? Truax soon began to turn decidedly white about the gills.
"I—I feel—awful," he groaned.
Doctor McCrea, in silence, again felt the fellow's pulse.
But, in a minute, something happened. A man may feel as well as ever, at one moment. Twenty minutes later, however, if he vomits, it is impossible to convince himself that he feels anything like well.
More of the same draught was brought, and the sick man made to swallow it. Even a third and a fourth dose were administered. Sam Truax became so much worse, in fact, that he did not even hear when the bow cable chains of the gunboat grated as the anchors were let go opposite Blair's Cove just before dark.
Certainly no man of medicine could have been more attentive than was Doctor McCrea. Even when one of the ward-room stewards appeared and announced that dinner was served, the naval surgeon replied: