day's work on
the cargo, Mother Nolan told them that Flora was in the grip of a
desperate fever, upon which none of her brews of roots and herbs seemed
to have any effect. She was hot as fire and babbled continually of
things strange and mad to the ears of the old woman. The skipper was
dismayed at the news; but his vigorous mind immediately began to search
for a means of dealing with the fever. He knew nothing of any remedies
save the local ones, in the manufacture and administering of which his
grandmother was a mistress. But here was the _Royal William's_
medicine-chest, and here was Pat Kavanagh who had sailed foreign voyages
in vessels carrying similar chests. He rushed from the house straight to
the poet-fiddler's cabin. He pushed open the door and entered without
knocking, as the custom is in Chance Along. Mary was attending to a
stew-pan on the stove, and Pat was seated in his chair with his wooden
leg strapped in place. The skipper told of the stranger's fever.

"An' ye has the ship's medicine-chest?" queried Pat. "Then we'll give
her the bitter white powder--quinine--aye, quinine. Every ship carries
it, lad. When I was took wid the fever in Port-o'-Spain didn't the mate
shake it on to me tongue till me ears crackled like hail on the roof,
an' when I got past stickin' out me tongue didn't he mix it wid whiskey
an' pour it into me? Sure, Denny! An' it knocked the fever galley west
in t'ree days an' left me limp as cook's dish-clout hangin' to dry under
the starboard life-boat. But it bes better nor dyin' entirely wid the
fever. I'll step round wid ye, skipper, and p'int out this here quinine
to ye."

And he did. He found a large bottle of quinine in the box, in powder
form. He measured out a quantity of it in doses of from three to five
grains, for his memory of the sizes of the doses administered to him by
the mate was somewhat dim, and advised Mother Nolan not to give the
powders too often nor yet not often enough. Mother Nolan asked for more
exact directions. She felt that she had a right to them. Pat Kavanagh
combed his long whiskers reflectively with his long fingers, gazing at
the medicine-chest with a far-away look in his pale eyes.

"I don't rightly recollect the ins an' outs o' me own case," he said, at
last, "but I has a dim picter in me mind o' how Mister Swim, the mate,
shook the powder on to me tongue every blessed time I opened me mouth to
holler. An' the b'ys let me drink all the cold water I co