“There are three poor fellows there, sir. One of them is alive; but, from the way he was crying out, I don’t think he can live many minutes longer. She looks to me like a French vessel—at all events, she is not English.”
This announcement was truly alarming. Mr Collinson told the men to carry him down, that he might see the poor sick man.
“We don’t want to be mutinous, sir,” answered Jack, “but that is what we won’t do. You are ill already, and more likely to catch the fever than we are. I’ll carry him down a mug of water, maybe that will do him good, but it’s little use any of us can be to him, I have a notion.”
Saying this, Jack again disappeared down the fore-hatch. He quickly returned.
“It was of no use, sir,” he said. “No sooner did I put the water to the poor fellow’s lips, than he gave a gasp and off he went. And now, sir, there are five of them lying there all dead. The sooner we get them up and overboard the better.”
Mr Collinson agreed to this, and the two men accordingly went at once into the cabin, and returned bringing a man, whom from his appearance they supposed to have been the captain. Without more ado, they slid the body overboard. Thus one after the other was treated. There was no time for ceremony of any sort. For their own safety, the great point was to get rid of the bodies at once. A tar-pot having been found, Mr Collinson then sent the men below, to fumigate the cabin and the forepeak.
“If we do that thoroughly, I trust that we need not fear the fever,” he observed. “At all events, let us put our faith in Providence, and pray that we may be preserved.”