“I stand or fall with you, doctor.  I have some little toebiters at home I don’t want to leave yet.”

“Very good.  Now, skipper, stand by him till I come back; I have some things to bring.”

Two wild journeys had to be risked, but the doctor’s luck held, and he once more came on that glassy deck.  Sharply and decisively he made his preparations.  “Have you nerve enough to assist me, skipper?”

“I’ll be as game as I can, doctor.”

“Then kneel here, and take this elastic bag in your hand; turn this rose right over my hands as I work, and keep the spray steadily spirting on the place.  You understand?  Now, Frank, my man, when I put this over your face, take a deep breath.”

* * * * *

Ferrier was pale when Frank asked “Where am I?” He waved the skipper aside, and set himself to comfort the brave man who had returned from the death-in-life of chloroform.

“Bear down on our people and let my men take the boat back.  I’m going to stop all night with you, skipper.”

“Well, of all the——­well, there sir, if you ain’t.  Lord! what me and Frank’ll have to tell them if we gets home!  Why, it’s a story to last ten year, this ’ere.  And on this here bank, in a smack!” “Never mind that, old fellow.  Get my men out of danger.”

The extraordinary—­almost violent—­hospitality of the skipper; his lavishness in the matter of the fisherman’s second luxury—­sugar; his laughing admiration, were very amusing.  He would not sleep, but he watched fondly over doctor and patient.

Ferrier was fortified now against certain insect plagues which once afflicted him, and the brilliant professor laid his head on an old cork fender and slept like an infant.  He did not return until next evening; he went without books, tobacco, alcohol, and conversation, and he never had an afterthought about his own privations.

Frank seemed so cool and easy when his saviour left him, that Ferrier determined to give him a last word of hope.

“Good-bye, my man.  No liquor of any sort.  You’ll get well now.  Bear up for four days more, because I must have you near me; then either you’ll run home with me, or I’ll order your skipper to take you.”

Nothing that the Middle Ages ever devised could equal that suffering seaman’s unavoidable tortures during the next few days.  He should have been on a soft couch; he was on a malodorous plank.  He should have been still; he was only kept from rolling over and over by pads of old netting stuffed under him on each side.  Luxury was denied him; and the necessities of life were scarce indeed.

Poor Frank! his sternly-tender surgeon did not desert him, and he was at last sent away in his own smack.  He lived to be an attendant in a certain institution which I shall not yet name.