“Eh! What! No! You won’t believe it? Well, how do you account for this? How do you think it could have happened?”
“Happened?” I repeated dully. “Why, yes, how in the name of the infernal powers did this thing happen?”
Indeed, on thinking it out, it seemed incomprehensible that it should just be like this: the bottles emptied, refilled, rewrapped, and replaced. A sort of plot, a sinister attempt to deceive, a thing resembling sly vengeance, but for what? Or else a fiendish joke. But Mr. Burns was in possession of a theory. It was simple, and he uttered it solemnly in a hollow voice.
“I suppose they have given him about fifteen pounds in Haiphong for that little lot.”
“Mr. Burns!” I cried.
He nodded grotesquely over his raised legs, like two broomsticks in the pyjamas, with enormous bare feet at the end.
“Why not? The stuff is pretty expensive in this part of the world, and they were very short of it in Tonkin. And what did he care? You have not known him. I have, and I have defied him. He feared neither God, nor devil, nor man, nor wind, nor sea, nor his own conscience. And I believe he hated everybody and everything. But I think he was afraid to die. I believe I am the only man who ever stood up to him. I faced him in that cabin where you live now, when he was sick, and I cowed him then. He thought I was going to twist his neck for him. If he had had his way we would have been beating up against the Nord-East monsoon, as long as he lived and afterward, too, for ages and ages. Acting the Flying Dutchman in the China Sea! Ha! Ha!”
“But why should he replace the bottles like this?” … I began.
“Why shouldn’t he? Why should he want to throw the bottles away? They fit the drawer. They belong to the medicine chest.”
“And they were wrapped up,” I cried.
“Well, the wrappers were there. Did it from habit, I suppose, and as to refilling, there is always a lot of stuff they send in paper parcels that burst after a time. And then, who can tell? I suppose you didn’t taste it, sir? But, of course, you are sure. …”
“No,” I said. “I didn’t taste it. It is all overboard now.”
Behind me, a soft, cultivated voice said: “I have tasted it. It seemed a mixture of all sorts, sweetish, saltish, very horrible.”
Ransome, stepping out of the pantry, had been listening for some time, as it was very excusable in him to do.
“A dirty trick,” said Mr. Burns. “I always said he would.”
The magnitude of my indignation was unbounded. And the kind, sympathetic doctor, too. The only sympathetic man I ever knew … instead of writing that warning letter, the very refinement of sympathy, why didn’t the man make a proper inspection? But, as a matter of fact, it was hardly fair to blame the doctor. The fittings were in order and the medicine chest is an officially arranged affair. There was nothing really to arouse the slightest suspicion. The person I could never forgive was myself. Nothing should ever be taken for granted. The seed of everlasting remorse was sown in my breast.
“I feel it’s all my fault,” I exclaimed, “mine and nobody else’s. That’s how I feel. I shall never forgive myself.”
“That’s very foolish, sir,” said Mr. Burns fiercely.
And after this effort he fell back exhausted on his bed. He closed his eyes, he panted; this affair, this abominable surprise had shaken him up, too. As I turned away I perceived Ransome looking at me blankly. He appreciated what it meant, but managed to produce his pleasant, wistful smile. Then he stepped back into his pantry, and I rushed up on deck again to see whether there was any wind, any breath under the sky, any stir of the air, any sign of hope. The deadly stillness met me again. Nothing was changed except that there was a different man at the wheel. He looked ill. His whole figure drooped, and he seemed rather to cling to the spokes than hold them with a controlling grip. I said to him:
“You are not fit to be here.”
“I can manage, sir,” he said feebly.
As a matter of fact, there was nothing for him to do. The ship had no steerage way. She lay with her head to the westward, the everlasting Koh-ring visible over the stern, with a few small islets, black spots in the great blaze, swimming before my troubled eyes. And but for those bits of land there was no speck on the sky, no speck on the water, no shape of vapour, no wisp of smoke, no sail, no boat, no stir of humanity, no sign of life, nothing!
The first question was, what to do? What could one do? The first thing to do obviously was to tell the men. I did it that very day. I wasn’t going to let the knowledge simply get about. I would face them. They were assembled on the quarterdeck for the purpose. Just before I stepped out to speak to them I discovered that life could hold terrible moments. No confessed criminal had ever been so oppressed by his sense of guilt. This is why, perhaps, my face was set hard and my voice curt and unemotional while I made my declaration that I could do nothing more for the sick in the way of drugs. As to such care as could be given them they knew they had had it.
I would have held them justified in tearing me limb from limb. The silence which followed upon my words was almost harder to bear than the angriest uproar. I was crushed by the infinite depth of its reproach. But, as a matter of fact, I was mistaken. In
