So soon as the cook set eyes on him he gave a sort of whistle.
'IT'S ONLY A PASSENGER!' said he; and turning about, made, lantern
and all, for the galley.
'He's a man anyway,' cried Jones in indignation.
'Nobody said he was a woman,' said a gruff voice, which I
recognised for that of the bo's'un.
All this while there was no word of Blackwood or the doctor; and
now the officer came to our side of the ship and asked, over the
hurricane-deck rails, if the doctor were not yet come. We told him
not.
'No?' he repeated with a breathing of anger; and we saw him hurry
aft in person.
Ten minutes after the doctor made his appearance deliberately
enough and examined our patient with the lantern. He made little
of the case, had the man brought aft to the dispensary, dosed him,
and sent him forward to his bunk. Two of his neighbours in the
steerage had now come to our assistance, expressing loud sorrow
that such 'a fine cheery body' should be sick; and these, claiming
a sort of possession, took him entirely under their own care.
