his regular trips to the hospital. Nothing mattered now.
His troubles were at an end. He could lie down and take care of himself
and proceed to get well. The _Jessie_ had arrived. His partner was on
board, vigorous and hearty from six weeks' recruiting on Malaita. He
could take charge now, and all would be well with Berande.

Sheldon lay in the steamer-chair and watched the _Jessie's_ whale-boat
pull in for the beach. He wondered why only three sweeps were pulling,
and he wondered still more when, beached, there was so much delay in
getting out of the boat. Then he understood. The three blacks who had
been pulling started up the beach with a stretcher on their shoulders. A
white man, whom he recognized as the _Jessie's_ captain, walked in front
and opened the gate, then dropped behind to close it. Sheldon knew that
it was Hughie Drummond who lay in the stretcher, and a mist came before
his eyes. He felt an overwhelming desire to die. The disappointment was
too great. In his own state of terrible weakness he felt that 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 ord