He was progressing toward the world
of living men; if he could hardly have been said to have rejoined it
yet. He nodded to me his frail and bony head in a wisely mysterious
assent.

"Oh, yes, I know what you mean," I said. "But you cannot expect me
to believe that a dead man has the power to put out of joint the
meteorology of this part of the world. Though indeed it seems to have
gone utterly wrong. The land and sea breezes have got broken up into
small pieces. We cannot depend upon them for five minutes together."

"It won't be very long now before I can come up on deck," muttered Mr.
Burns, "and then we shall see."

Whether he meant this for a promise to grapple with supernatural evil I
couldn't tell. At any rate, it wasn't the kind of assistance I needed.
On the other hand, I had been living on deck practically night and day
so as to take advantage of every chance to get my ship a little more to
the southward. The mate, I could see, was extremely weak yet, and not
quite rid of his delusion, which to me appeared but a symptom of his
disease. At all events, the hopefulness of an invalid was not to be
discouraged. I said:

"You will be most welcome there, I am sure, Mr. Burns. If you go on
improving at this rate you'll be presently one of the healthiest men in
the ship."

This pleased him, but his extreme emaciation converted his
self-satisfied smile into a ghastly exhibition of long teeth under the
red moustache.

"Aren't the fellows improving, sir?" he asked soberly, with an extremely
sensible expression of anxiety on his face.

I answered him only with a vague gesture and went away from the door.
The fact was that disease played with us capriciously very much as the
winds did. It would go from one man to another with a lighter or heavier
touch, which always left its mark behind, staggering some, knocking
others over for a time, leaving this one, returning to another, so that
all of them had now an invalidish aspect and a hunted, apprehensive look
in their eyes; while Ransome and I, the only two completely untouched,
went amongst them assiduously distributing quinine. It was a double
fight. The adverse weather held us in front and the disease pressed on
our rear. I must say that the men were very good. The constant toil of
trimming yards they faced willingly. But all spring was out of their
limbs, and as I looked at them from the poop I could not keep from my
mind the dreadful impression that they were movi