'The pain,' I told him, 'is already grown almost intolerable. But it will be much greater in a few hours unless something is done. It is now like unto a little ball of red-hot fire in your jaw; in an hour or two it will seem as if the whole of your face was a burning fiery furnace; your cheek will swell out until your left eye is closed; your tortures, which now make you bawl, will then make you scream; you now walk about and stamp; you will then lie down on your back and kick. No negro slave ever suffered half so much under your accursed lash as you will suffer under this tumour—unless something is done.'
'Doctor,' it was again the woman's voice from the hammock, 'you have frightened him enough.'
'Strong drink,' I went on, pointing to the tankard, 'will only make you worse. It inflames your blood and adds fuel to the raging fire. Unless something is done the pain will be followed by delirium; that by fever, and the fever by death. Sir, are you prepared for death?'
He turned horribly pale and gasped.
'Do something for me!' he said. 'Do something for me, and that without more words!'
'Nay; but I will first make a bargain with you. There is in the sick-house a gentleman, my cousin—Robin Challis by name—one of the newly-arrived rebels, and your servant. He is lying sick unto death of a sunstroke and fever caused by your hellish cruelty in sending him out to work on the fields with the negroes instead of putting him to light labour in the Ingenio or elsewhere. I say, his sickness is caused by your barbarity. Wherefore I will do nothing for you at all—do you hear? Nothing! nothing!—unless I am set free to do all I can for him. Yea; and I must have such cordials and generous diet as the place can afford, otherwise I will not stir a finger to help you. Otherwise—endure the torments of the damned; rave in madness and in fever. Die and go to your own place. I will not help you. So; that is my last word.'
Upon this I really thought the man had gone stark, staring mad. For, at the impudence of a mere servant (though a gentleman of far better family than his own) daring to make conditions with him, he became purple in the cheeks, and, seizing his great stick which lay on the table, he began belabouring me with all his might about the head and shoulders. But I caught up a chair and used it for a shield, while he capered about, striking wildly and swearing most horribly.
At this moment the lady who was in the hammock stepped out of it and walked towards us slowly, like a Queen. She was without any doubt the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was dressed in a kind of dressing-gown of flowered silk, which covered her from head to foot; her head was adorned with the most lovely glossy black ringlets; a heavy gold chain lay round her neck, and a chain of gold with pearls was twined in her hair, so that it looked like a coronet; her fingers were covered with rings, and gold bracelets hung upon her bare white arms. Her figure was tall and full; her face inclined to the Spanish, being full and yet regular, with large black eyes. Though I was fighting with a madman, I could not resist the wish that I could paint her, and I plainly perceived that she was one of that race which is called Quadroon, being most likely the daughter of a mulatto woman and a white father. This was evident by the character of her skin, which had in it what the Italians call the morbidezza, and by a certain dark hue under the eyes.
'Why,' she said, speaking to the master as if he had been a petulant school-boy, 'you only make yourself worse by all this fury. Sit down, and lay aside your stick. And you. Sir'—she addressed herself to me—'you may be a great physician, and at home a gentleman; but here you are a servant, and therefore bound to help your master in all you can without first making conditions.'