man, brotherhood, you know, and equality! He has edified us many an hour with his observations, you might almost say his oratory, on the just republic. And the colony he planned -no privileges, no oppression; no money, no greed; everything held in common, like in a mess with good shipmates - no statutes, no lawyers - the voice of the people the only law, the only court of justice - everybody to worship the Supreme Being just as he sees fit - no interference, no compulsion, complete freedom.'
'It sounds like the earthly Paradise.'
'That is what many of our people say. And some declare they would not have been so eager to stop Mr Dutourd if they had known what he was about - might even have joined him.'
'Do they not reflect that he was preying on our whalers and merchantmen, and helping Kalahua in his war with Puolani?'
'Oh, as for the privateering side, that was entirely his Yankee sailing-master, and they would certainly never have joined in that - not against their own countrymen, though natural enough, in war-time, on the part of a foreigner. No: it was the colony that pleased them so, with its peace and equality and a decent life without working yourself to the bone and an old age that don't bear thinking on.'
'Peace and equality, with all my heart,' said Stephen.
'But you shake your head, sir, and I dare say you are thinking about that war. It was sadly misrepresented, but Mr Dutourd has made everything quite clear. The sides had been spoiling for a fight time out of mind, and once Kalahua had hired those riffraff Frenchmen from the Sandwich Islands with muskets there was no holding him. They had nothing to do with Mr Dutourd's settlers. No. What Mr D meant to do was to sail in with a show of force and set himself between them, then establish his own colony and win both sides over by example and persuasion. And as for persuasion...! If you had heard him you would have been convinced directly: he has a wonderful gift, you might say an unction, even in a foreign language. Our people think the world of him.'
'He certainly speaks English remarkably well.'
'And not only that, sir. He is remarkably good to what were his own men. You know how he sat up with them night after night in the sick-berth until they were either cured or put over the side. And although the master of the Franklin and his mates were right hard-horse drivers, the men who are with us now say Mr D was always stepping in to protect them - would not have them flogged.'
At this point, just before eight bells, a sleepy, yawning Grainger came on deck to relieve his shipmate; and the starboard watch, most of whom had been sleeping in the waist, began to stir: the ship came to a muted sort of life. 'Three knots, sir, if you please,' reported young Wedell, now an acting midshipman. And in the usual piping, calling, hurrying sounds of the change - all fairly discreet at four o'clock in the morning - Stephen slipped away to his cabin. There was something curiously pleasing about the Knipperdollings' credulity, he reflected as he lay there with his hands behind his head: an amiable simplicity: and he was still smiling when he went to sleep.
To sleep, but not for long. Presently the idlers were called, and they joined the watch in the daily ritual of cleaning the decks, pumping floods of sea-water over them, sanding, holystoning and swabbing them, flogging them dry by the rising of the sun. There were hardened sailors who could sleep through all this -Jack Aubrey was one, and he could be heard snoring yet - but Stephen was not. On this occasion it did not make him unhappy or fretful, however, and he lay there placidly thinking of a number of pleasant things. Clarissa came into his mind: she too had something of that simplicity, in spite of a life as hard as could well be imagined.
'Are you awake?' asked Jack Aubrey in a hoarse whisper through a crack in the door.
'I am not,' said Stephen. 'Nor do I choose to swim; but I will take coffee with you when you return to the ship. The animal,' he added to himself. 'I never heard him get up.' It was true. Jack weighed far too much, but he was still remarkably light on his feet.
With this fine brisk start to the day Dr Maturin was early for his morning rounds, a rare thing in one with so vague a notion of time. These rounds amounted to little from the strictly surgical point of view, but Stephen still had some obstinate gleets and poxes. In long, fairly quiet passages these and scurvy were the medical man's daily fare; but whereas Stephen could oblige the seamen to avoid scurvy by drinking lemon-juice in their grog, no power on earth could prevent them from hurrying to bawdy-houses as soon as they were ashore. These cases he treated with calomel and guaiacum, and it was usual for the draughts to be prepared by Martin: Stephen was not satisfied with the progress of two of his patients and he had resolved upon dosing them in the far more radical Viennese manner when he saw a beetle on the deck just this side of the half-open door, clear in the light of the dispensary lantern, a yellow beetle. A longicorn of course, but what longicorn? An active longicorn, in any event. He dropped on to his hands and knees and crept silently towards it: with the beetle in his handkerchief, he looked up. His advance had brought the door directly in front of him, with the whole dispensary lit, clear, and as it were in another world: there was Martin, gravely mixing the last of his row of draughts, and as Stephen watched he raised the glass and drank it off.
Stephen rose to his feet and coughed. Martin turned sharply. 'Good morning, sir,' he said, whipping the glass under his apron. The greeting was civil, but mechanically so, with no spontaneous smile. He had obviously not forgotten yesterday's unpleasantness and he appeared both to resent his exclusion from the passage to the Franklin and to expect resentment on Stephen's part for his offensive remarks. Stephen was in fact of a saturnine temperament, as Martin knew: he could even have been called revengeful, and he found it difficult to forgive a slight. But there was more than this; it was as though Martin had just escaped being detected in an act he was very willing to conceal, and there was some remaining tinge of defiant hostility about his attitude.
Padeen came in, and having called on God to bless the gentlemen he announced, with some difficulty, that the sick-berth was ready for their honours. The medical men went from cot to cot, Stephen asking each man how he did, taking his pulse and examining his peccant parts: he discussed each case briefly with his assistant, in Latin, and Martin wrote down his observations in a book: as the book closed so Padeen gave each seaman his draught and pills.
When it was over they returned to the dispensary and while Padeen was washing the glasses Stephen said, 'I am not satisfied with Grant or MacDuff and intend to put them on the Viennese treatment next week.'
'My authorities speak of it, but I do not recall that they name its principle.'
'It is the murias hydrargi corrosivus.'
'The phial next to the myrrh? I have never known it used.'
'Just so. I reserve it for the most obdurate cases: there are grave disadvantages... Now, Padeen, what is amiss?'
Padeen's stammer, always bad, grew worse with emotion, but in time it appeared that there had been ten glasses in the cupboard an hour ago, not even an hour ago, and they shining: now there were only nine. He held up his spread hands with one finger folded down and repeated 'Nine.'
