there are cases where you cannot hesitate to administer them, even
if they are distasteful; and where you disguise their taste with syrups
and essential oils you often do harm instead of good."

"Do you think he is very bad, Mr Frewen?" I said.

"Oh yes--very," was the reply. "Not dangerous!" I whispered.

"Yes, decidedly dangerous," he said, in the same low tone.

"Then he ought not to be left?"

"Oh yes, better left. He'll come round. There, I'm going to see how
the other prisoners are getting on. I'm afraid that I am badly wanted
there."

He stood looking down at the patient with his brow knit, and I noticed a
fidgety movement about one of his feet.

"Oughtn't I to stop and nurse him?" I asked.

"No; certainly not. He is better alone. This kind of case does not
require attention--only time. Come along," and he went to the door.

"All right, Mr Frewen; I'll come directly," I said softly.

"But I want to fasten the door," he whispered.

"I'll fasten it when I come out."

"No, that will not do; Mr Brymer said that the door was to be kept
fast, and I can't go away and leave it."

"But I want to talk to him," I whispered. "Lock me in for a bit."

"And suppose he turns savage with you, and tries to get your weapons?"
whispered Mr Frewen, with a smile.

"I shan't let him have them," I replied. "Besides, he's weak and ill."

"Humph!--not so very, my lad. There, I'll lock you in, and come and let
you out in a quarter of an hour."

He closed and locked the cabin door sharply, and I stood there thinking
what I should say to my old messmate, and feeling how awkward it was now
he was in trouble. For he lay there half turned away with his eyes
closed, and I heard him moan piteously again while I waited to hear Mr
Frewen's departing step.

But it did not come for a few moments. Then I heard him go into the
adjoining cabin, and the opening of his medicine-chest quite plainly.

"I don't believe he wants medicine," I thought. "He must be suffering
from some internal injury." Though as to what part of his body the
injury might be in, I had not the slightest idea.

There was a loud clink of bottle or glass, and then quite plainly came
the setting down of something hard upon a shelf, the sound coming
plainly through the opening we had so laboriously made when Mr Preddle
was a prisoner in this cabin, and Mr Frewen and I in the next.

Then I heard a loud cough. There was a squeaking sound of a cork