“You’ll die, if you go on——”
“I’ll die, if I don’t,” said Morning. The Doctor knew in his heart that it was true. Still they compromised. That night, as Morning dropped down into an abyss of exhaustion, he mumbled the whole story of Eve—the sorrel mare. “She rose to her feet—white death in her eyes,” he finished....
Nothing attracts the eye on ship-board like a man at work. All idle ones are caught in the current and come to pay their devoirs to the man mastered by a strong task.... The Doctor had Morning taken to an extra berth in his own state-room. The door had a spring lock, for many medicines and stores were there. Ferry was not likely to happen in the Doctor’s quarters. The latter even doubted if he would recognize Morning. He came and went, as the task drove on. Once Morning stopped to tell him about the deck passage on the Tungsheng, and another time about his brush with the Hun huises in the ravine across the river from Tawan.... The Doctor saw that Morning had made a wonderful instrument of himself; he studied how the passion of an artist works on the body of man. The other found that so long as he ate regularly and fell asleep without a struggle—he was allowed to go on.
The Sickles was swinging down into the warmth. The sick man had a bad day, lying in the harbor at Honolulu.
“It isn’t the work, Doctor—it’s the ship’s stopping,” Morning said, squirming in the berth. “It makes my head hot. I see steamy and all that. I had it when the Tungsheng lay up for a day in Chifu on account of the blow.... I had it that day in Nagasski when Ferry wouldn’t take me on. I’ll be all right to-night.... Give me a little touch of that gin and lime juice——”
“Just lime juice when heads get hot.... You’re a clever little drunkard. I’ve been wondering how far you’d go.... Yes, we’ll clear to-night.... Ferry’s ashore. Come out and see the black boys dive for pennies.”
“There’s something doing with this knife-wound—it doesn’t heal,” the Doctor said, mid-way between the Islands and the Farallonnes. “The leg’s all right. Organs and all the little organs seem to thrive on work. That is, they’re no worse. The leg heals—but this one—you seem to have established a permanent drain——”
“Fifty pages yesterday—two hundred words a page,” Morning muttered.
“Yes—and the day before—and to-morrow—and the night we left Honolulu.... If a man worked that way for money, he’d be as dead as Ferry inside of a month.... Have you read your friend Fallows’ story yet?”