Page:Barbour--Joan of the ilsand.djvu/216

204 that I was ten different kinds of a fool. Pretty decent of him, too, because it wasn't any affair of his, and you're more likely to get kicked than thanked if you float around in these latitudes reading temperance lectures."

"Where did he bob up from?" Steel asked.

"Floated ashore, like a merman, straight out of the sea."

"Floated? You mean in a boat?"

"Boat nothing. He swam here. Fell overboard somewhere off Tao Tao and the steamer didn't stop, so he had to swim or drown."

Steel nodded, but whatever thoughts he had he kept them to himself.

Before the little party returned to the warship Pills promised to take a run ashore next morning, to see his patient, and he turned up immediately after dawn in his pajamas and a dressing-gown, the "Old Man" having given him just twenty minutes grace, as he had decided to sail almost immediately. Pills brought a bundle of newspapers which were of comparatively recent date, having been passed on to the Petrel by a steamer not long out of Sydney.

Keith's fever was somewhat allayed.

"He may be all right now, if you look after him carefully," the doctor declared. "I've brought you a couple of bottles of medicine that should help him a bit. Good-bye. Awfully sorry I can't stop any longer, but if I don't scoot now there'll be a shindy."