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I WAS wakened--indeed, we were all wakened, for I could
see even the sentinel shake himself together from where
he had fallen against the door-post--by a clear, hearty
voice hailing us from the margin of the wood:
"Block house, ahoy!" it cried. "Here's the doctor."
And the doctor it was. Although I was glad to hear the
sound, yet my gladness was not without admixture. I
remembered with confusion my insubordinate and stealthy
conduct, and when I saw where it had brought me--among
what companions and surrounded by what dangers--I felt
ashamed to look him in the face.
He must have risen in the dark, for the day had hardly
come; and when I ran to a loophole and looked out, I
saw him standing, like Silver once before, up to the
mid-leg in creeping vapour.
"You, doctor! Top o' the morning to you, sir!" cried
Silver, broad awake and beaming with good nature in a
moment. "Bright and early, to be sure; and it's the
early bird, as the saying goes, that gets the rations.
George, shake up your timbers, son, and help Dr.
Livesey over the ship's side. All a-doin' well, your
patients was--all well and merry."
So he pattered on, standing on the hilltop with his crutch
under his elbow and one hand upon the side of the log-house
--quite the old John in voice, manner, and expression.
"We've quite a surprise for you too, sir," he
continued. "We've a little stranger here--he! he! A
noo boarder and lodger, sir, and looking fit and taut
as a fiddle; slep' like a supercargo, he did, right
alongside of John--stem to stem we was, all night."
Dr. Livesey was by this time across the stockade and
pretty near the cook, and I could hear the alteration
in his voice as he said, "Not Jim?"
"The very same Jim as ever was," says Silver.
The doctor stopped outright, although he did not speak,
and it was some seconds before he seemed able to move on.
"Well, well," he said at last, "duty first and pleasure
afterwards, as you might have said yourself, Silver.
Let us overhaul these patients of yours."
A moment afterwards he had entered the block house and
with one grim nod to me proceeded with his work among
the sick. He seemed under no apprehension, though he
must have known that his life, among these treacherous
demons, depended on a hair; and he rattled on to his
patients as if he were paying an ordinary professional
visit in a quiet English family. His manner, I
suppose, reacted on the men, for they behaved to him as
if nothing had occurred, as if he were still ship's
doctor and they still faithful hands before the mast.
"You're doing well, my friend," he said to the fellow
with the bandaged head, "and if ever any person had a
close shave, it was you; your head must be as hard as
iron. Well, George, how goes it? You're a pretty
colour, certainly; why, your liver, man, is upside
down. Did you take that medicine? Did he take that
medicine, men?"
"Aye, aye, sir, he took it, sure enough," returned Morgan.
"Because, you see, since I am mutineers' doctor, or
prison doctor as I prefer to call it," says Doctor
Livesey in his pleasantest way, "I make it a point of
honour not to lose a man for King George (God bless
him!) and the gallows."
The rogues looked at each other but swallowed the home-
thrust in silence.
"Dick don't feel well, sir," said one.
"Don't he?" replied the doctor. "Well, step up here,
Dick, and let me see your tongue. No, I should be
surprised if he did! The man's tongue is fit to
frighten the French. Another fever."
"Ah, there," said Morgan, "that comed of sp'iling Bibles."
"That comes--as you call it--of being arrant asses,"
retorted the doctor, "and not having sense enough to
know honest air from poison, and the dry land from a
vile, pestiferous slough. I think it most probable--
though of course it's only an opinion--that you'll all
have the deuce to pay before you get that malaria out
of your systems. Camp in a bog, would you? Silver,
I'm surprised at you. You're less of a fool than many,
take you all round; but you don't appear to me to have
the rudiments of a notion of the rules of health.
"Well," he added after he had dosed them round and they
had taken his prescriptions, with really laughable humility,
more like charity schoolchildren than blood-guilty mutineers
and pirates--"well, that's done for today. And now I should
wish to have a talk with that boy, please."
And he nodded his head in my direction carelessly.
George Merry was at the door, spitting and spluttering
over some bad-tasted medicine; but at the first word of
the doctor's proposal he swung round with a deep flush
and cried "No!" and swore.
Silver struck the barrel with his open hand.
"Si-lence!" he roared and looked about him positively
like a lion. "Doctor," he went on in his usual tones,
"I was a-thinking of that, knowing as how you had a
fancy for the boy. We're all humbly grateful for your
kindness, and as you see, puts faith in you and takes
the drugs down like that much grog. And I take it I've
found a way as'll suit all. Hawkins, will you give me
your word of honour as a young gentleman--for a young
gentleman you are, although poor born--your word of
honour not to slip your cable?"
I readily gave the pledge required.
"Then, doctor," said Silver, "you just step outside o'
that stockade, and once you're there I'll bring the boy
down on the inside, and I reckon you can yarn through
the spars. Good day to you, sir, and all our dooties
to the squire and Cap'n Smollett."
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