ifted their horny
eyelids lazily, and leered upon him as he passed with stupid savageness.
Lines of tall herons stood dimly in the growing gloom, like white
fantastic ghosts, watching the passage of the doomed boat. All was foul,
sullen, weird as witches' dream. If Amyas had seen a crew of skeletons
glide down the stream behind him, with Satan standing at the helm, he
would have scarcely been surprised. What fitter craft could haunt that
Stygian flood?

That night every man of the boat's crew, save Amyas, was down with
raging fever; before ten the next morning, five more men were taken, and
others sickening fast.

CHAPTER XXI

HOW THEY TOOK THE COMMUNION UNDER THE TREE AT HIGUEROTE

"Follow thee? Follow thee? Wha wad na follow thee? Lang hast
thou looed and trusted us fairly."

Amyas would have certainly taken the yellow fever, but for one reason,
which he himself gave to Cary. He had no time to be sick while his men
were sick; a valid and sufficient reason (as many a noble soul in
the Crimea has known too well), as long as the excitement of work is
present, but too apt to fail the hero, and to let him sink into the pit
which he has so often over-leapt, the moment that his work is done.

He called a council of war, or rather a sanitary commission, the
next morning; for he was fairly at his wits' end. The men were
panic-stricken, ready to mutiny: Amyas told them that he could not see
any possible good which could accrue to them by killing him, or--(for
there were two sides to every question)--being killed by him; and then
went below to consult. The doctor talked mere science, or nonscience,
about humors, complexions, and animal spirits. Jack Brimblecombe, mere
pulpit, about its being the visitation of God. Cary, mere despair,
though he jested over it with a smile. Yeo, mere stoic fatalism, though
he quoted Scripture to back the same. Drew, the master, had nothing to
say. His "business was to sail the ship, and not to cure calentures."

Whereon Amyas clutched his locks, according to custom; and at last broke
forth--"Doctor! a fig for your humors and complexions! Can you cure
a man's humors, or change his complexion? Can an Ethiopian change his
skin, or a leopard his spots? Don't shove off your ignorance on God,
sir. I ask you what's the reason of this sickness, and you don't know.
Jack Brimblecombe, don't talk to me about God's visitation; this looks
much more like the devil's visitation, to my mi