ut of the river next morning, even if
I have to anchor outside the bar for a couple of days to get her ready
for sea."

"Oh! I'll make all the arrangements myself," said the doctor at once.
"I spoke as I did only as a friend--as a well-wisher, and that sort of
thing."

He rose in his dignified simplicity and gave me a warm handshake, rather
solemnly, I thought. But he was as good as his word. When Mr. Burns
appeared at the gangway carried on a stretcher, the doctor himself
walked by its side. The programme had been altered in so far that this
transportation had been left to the last moment, on the very morning of
our departure.

It was barely an hour after sunrise. The doctor waved his big arm to me
from the shore and walked back at once to his trap, which had followed
him empty to the river-side. Mr. Burns, carried across the quarter-deck,
had the appearance of being absolutely lifeless. Ransome went down to
settle him in his cabin. I had to remain on deck to look after the ship,
for the tug had got hold of our towrope already.

The splash of our shore-fasts falling in the water produced a complete
change of feeling in me. It was like the imperfect relief of awakening
from a nightmare. But when the ship's head swung down the river away
from that town, Oriental and squalid, I missed the expected elation of
that striven-for moment. What there was, undoubtedly, was a relaxation
of tension which translated itself into a sense of weariness after an
inglorious fight.

About midday we anchored a mile outside the bar. The afternoon was busy
for all hands. Watching the work from the poop, where I remained all the
time, I detected in it some of the languor of the six weeks spent in the
steaming heat of the river. The first breeze would blow that away. Now
the calm was complete. I judged that the second officer--a callow youth
with an unpromising face--was not, to put it mildly, of that invaluable
stuff from which a commander's right hand is made. But I was glad to
catch along the main deck a few smiles on those seamen's faces at which
I had hardly had time to have a good look as yet. Having thrown off the
mortal coil of shore affairs, I felt myself familiar with them and yet a
little strange, like a long-lost wanderer among his kin.

Ransome flitted continually to and fro between the galley and the cabin.
It was a pleasure to look at him. The man positively had grace. He
alone of all the crew had not had a day's illness i