Captain Kettle played his parts as nurse and warder with grave attention.  He sat perspiring in his shirt sleeves, writing at the table whenever for a moment or two he had a spell of rest; and his screed grew rapidly.  He was making verse, and it was under the stress of severe circumstances like these that his Muse served him best.

The fetid air of the room throbbed with heat; the glow from the candle lamp was a mere yellow flicker; and the Portuguese, who cowered with twitching fingers in the bunk, was quite ready to murder him at the slightest opening:  it was not a combination of circumstances which would have inspired many men.

Morning came, with a shiver and a chill, and with the first flicker of dawn, the last spark of the negro’s life went out.  Kettle nodded to the ghastly face as though it had been an old friend.  “You seemed to like being made use of,” he said.  “Well, daddy, I hope you have served your turn.  If your skipper hasn’t got the plague in his system now, I shall think God’s forgotten this bit of Africa entirely.”

He stood up, gathered his papers, slung the spruce white drill coat over his arm, and unlocked the door.  “Captain Rabeira,” he said, “you have my full permission to resume your occupation of going to the deuce your own way.”  With which parting salutation, he went below to the steamer’s bathroom and took his morning tub.

Half an hour passed before he came to the deck again, and Nilssen met him at the head of the companion-way with a queer look on his face.  “Well,” he said, “you’ve done it.”

“Done what?”

“Scared Rabeira over the side.”

“How?”

“He came scampering on deck just now, yelling blue murder, and trying to catch crawly things that weren’t there.  Guess he’d got jim-jams bad.  Then he took it into his head that a swim would be useful, and before any one could stop him, he was over the side.”

“Well?”

“He’s over the side still,” said the Dane drily.  “He didn’t come to the surface.  Guess a crocodile chopped him.”

“There are plenty round.”

“Naturally.  We’ve been ground baiting pretty liberally these last few weeks.  Well, I guess we are about through with the business now.  Not nervous about yourself, eh?”

“No,” said Kettle, and touched his cap.  “God’s been looking on at this gamble, as I told Rabeira last night, and He dealt over the beans the way they were earned.”

“That’s all right,” said Nilssen cheerfully.  “When a man keeps his courage he don’t get small-pox, you bet.”

“Well,” said Kettle, “I suppose we’ll be fumigated and get a clean bill in about ten days from now, and I’m sure I don’t mind the bit of extra rest.  I’ve got a lot of stuff I want to write up.  It’s come in my head lately, and I’ve had no time to get it down on paper.  I shouldn’t wonder but what it makes a real stir some day when it’s printed; it’s real good stuff.  I wonder if that yellow-faced Belgian doctor will live to give us pratique?”