as possible.'
'Parted company so soon?' cried Grainger. 'I never knew; nor did Vidal when he spoke to me this morning.' Then recovering himself, 'Mr Martin, of course. Pray give the poor gentleman my kind good-day. We were right moved to hear he had tried to creep on deck to bury our shipmates.'
'Nathaniel Martin,' said Stephen, 'I am sorry to have left you so long untended.'
'Not at all, not at all,' cried Martin. 'That good Padeen has been by, Emily brought me a cup of tea, and I have slept much of the time: I am indeed very much better.'
'So I see,' said Stephen, bringing his lantern down to look into Martin's face. He then turned back the sheet. 'The disorders of the skin,' he observed, gently feeling the ugliest lesion, 'are perhaps the most puzzling in all medicine. Here is a sensible diminution within hours.'
'I slept as I have not slept for - for Heaven knows how long, my body lying peacefully at last: no incessant irritation, no pain from the slightest pressure, no perpetual turning in vain for ease.'
'There is nothing to be done without sleep,' said Stephen, and he continued with his examination. 'Yet,' said he, replacing the sheet, 'I shall be glad to set you on shore. Your skin may well be on the mend, but I am not at all satisfied with your heart or your lungs or your elimination; and from what you tell me the vertigo is as bad as ever, even worse. Firm land under foot may do wonders; and a vegetable diet. The same is to be said for several of our patients.'
'We have so often known it to be the case,' said Martin. 'In parenthesis, may I tell you a strange thing? Some hours ago, as I was coming out of a blessed doze, I thought I heard a sea-lion bark, and my heart lifted with happiness, as it did when I was a boy, or even in New South Wales. How close are we to the shore?'
'I cannot tell, but they said before we parted company - for the Captain is standing to the westward: he leaves you his particular compliments - that the Cordillera was distinctly to be seen from the masthead; and there may well be some rocky islands close at hand where sea-lions live. For my own part I have seen a file of pelicans, and they are not birds to go far from land.'
'Very true. But pray tell me about the present state of the sick-berth. I am afraid you have been cruelly overworked.'
They talked for a while about the recent incised, lacerated, punctured and gun-shot wounds, the fractures simple, compound or comminuted that had come below, and Stephen's success or failure in dealing with them, speaking in an objective, professional manner. In a less detached tone Martin asked after the Captain. 'It is the eye that troubles me,' said Stephen. 'The pike-thrust is healing by first intention; the head-wound, though its stunning effect is still evident to a slight degree, is of no consequence; nor is the loss of blood. But the eye received the wad of the pistol-bullet that tore his scalp, a thick, gritty, partially disintegrated wad. I extracted many fragments and I believe there was no grave scoring of the cornea nor of course any penetration. But there is great and persistent hyperaemia and lachrymation...' He was about to say that 'such a patient was not to be relied upon - would double doses - would swallow them together with any quack panacea - would listen to the first cow-leech he might encounter', but he restrained himself and their conversation returned to the sick-berth as Martin had left it, to their old patients.
'And how are Grant and MacDuff?' asked Martin.
'Those who had the Vienna treatment? Grant died just before the action, and clearly I did not have time to open him: but I strongly suspect the corrosive sublimate. MacDuff is well enough for light duties, though his constitution is much shattered; I doubt his full recovery.'
After a pause, and in an altered voice, Martin said, 'I must tell you that I too took the Vienna treatment.'
'In what dose?'
'I could find nothing in our authorities, so I based myself on the amount we used for our calomel draughts.'
Stephen said nothing. The bolder Austrian physicians might administer a quarter of a grain of the sublimate: the usual dose of calomel was four.
'Perhaps I was rash,' said Martin. 'But I was desperate; and the calomel and guaiacum seemed to do no good.'
'They could not cure a disease you did not have,' said Stephen. 'But in any event I shall be glad to have you in hospital, where you can with something like decency and comfort be purged and purged again. We must do everything possible to rid your system of this noxious substance.'
'I was desperate,' said Martin, his mind fixed on that dreadful past. 'I was unclean, unclean: rotting alive, as the seamen say. A shameful death. And I think my mind was disturbed. Until you absolutely asserted that these were salt-sores I was wholly convinced that they were of sinful origin: you will admit they were very like. They were very like, were they not?'
'When they had been exacerbated by an immoderate use of mercury, perhaps they were; though I doubt an impartial observer would have been deceived.'
'The wicked fleeth where no man pursueth,' said Martin. 'Dear Marturin, I have been a very wicked fellow. In intention I have been a very wicked fellow.'
'You must spend the night in drinking fresh rainwater,' said Stephen. 'Every time you wake, you must swallow down a glass at least, to get rid of all you can. Padeen will bring you a rack of necessary-bottles and I trust I shall see them filled by morning: but I cannot wait to get you ashore and to start more radical measures; for indeed, colleague, there is not a moment to lose.'
There was not a moment to be lost, and happily the harbour formalities in Callao bay did not take long, the Surprise and her valuable train being so welcome to the agent, who had dealt with her prizes on the outward voyage, and to his brother, the captain of the port: as soon as they were over Stephen went ashore pulled by Jemmy Ducks in his little skiff. Well over on the left hand they passed a remarkable amount of shipping for so small a town: vessels from Chile, Mexico and farther north, and at least two China ships. 'Right on our beam, beyond the yellow schooner, in the dockyard itself, that must be the barque from Liverpool,' said Jemmy. 'They are busy in her tops.'
It was high tide on the dusty strand, and as Stephen walked up it towards an archway in the wall a gritty cloud swept across from the earthquake-shattered ruins of Old Callao. When it had cleared he saw a group of ill-looking men of all colours from black to dirty yellow standing under the shelter. 'Gentlemen,' he said in Spanish, 'pray do me the kindness of pointing out the hospital.'
