it was impossible to go on with his task of holding Berande plantation tight-gripped in his fist.  Then the will of him flamed up again, and he directed the blacks to lay the stretcher beside him on the floor.  Hughie Drummond, whom he had last seen in health, was an emaciated skeleton.  His closed eyes were deep-sunken.  The shrivelled lips had fallen away from the teeth, and the cheek-bones seemed bursting through the skin.  Sheldon sent a house-boy for his thermometer and glanced questioningly at the captain.

“Black-water fever,” the captain said.  “He’s been like this for six days, unconscious.  And we’ve got dysentery on board.  What’s the matter with you?”

“I’m burying four a day,” Sheldon answered, as he bent over from the steamer-chair and inserted the thermometer under his partner’s tongue.

Captain Oleson swore blasphemously, and sent a house-boy to bring whisky and soda.  Sheldon glanced at the thermometer.

“One hundred and seven,” he said.  “Poor Hughie.”

Captain Oleson offered him some whisky.

“Couldn’t think of it—­perforation, you know,” Sheldon said.

He sent for a boss-boy and ordered a grave to be dug, also some of the packing-cases to be knocked together into a coffin.  The blacks did not get coffins.  They were buried as they died, being carted on a sheet of galvanized iron, in their nakedness, from the hospital to the hole in the ground.  Having given the orders, Sheldon lay back in his chair with closed eyes.

“It’s ben fair hell, sir,” Captain Oleson began, then broke off to help himself to more whisky.  “It’s ben fair hell, Mr. Sheldon, I tell you.  Contrary winds and calms.  We’ve ben driftin’ all about the shop for ten days.  There’s ten thousand sharks following us for the tucker we’ve ben throwin’ over to them.  They was snappin’ at the oars when we started to come ashore.  I wisht to God a nor’wester’d come along an’ blow the Solomons clean to hell.”

“We got it from the water—­water from Owga creek.  Filled my casks with it.  How was we to know?  I’ve filled there before an’ it was all right.  We had sixty recruits-full up; and my crew of fifteen.  We’ve ben buryin’ them day an’ night.  The beggars won’t live, damn them!  They die out of spite.  Only three of my crew left on its legs.  Five more down.  Seven dead.  Oh, hell!  What’s the good of talkin’?”

“How many recruits left?” Sheldon asked.

“Lost half.  Thirty left.  Twenty down, and ten tottering around.”

Sheldon sighed.

“That means another addition to the hospital.  We’ve got to get them ashore somehow.—­Viaburi!  Hey, you, Viaburi, ring big fella bell strong fella too much.”

The hands, called in from the fields at that unwonted hour, were split into detachments.  Some were sent into the woods to cut timber for house-beams, others to cutting cane-grass for thatching, and forty of them lifted a whale-boat above their heads and carried it down to the sea.  Sheldon had gritted his teeth, pulled his collapsing soul together, and taken Berande plantation into his fist once more.