“The doctor’s report left a bad taste in your mouth, eh? If you don’t mind, I’d like to say a few words more on this same subject, your Excellency.”
The Captain stuck his hands deeply into his coat pockets, looking straight at the Count. “You are an old soldier and a gentleman who knows the world, Count. Dr. Brown came to me this afternoon somewhat worried. He doesn’t want to scare you needlessly but neither does he intend you should get off the boat a sick man. He is probably a little over-cautious. Now, just to please us all, let him look after you until we land. There is nothing more trying after a residence in India than the passage we have ahead of us for the next five or six days. Do as Dr. Brown advises and when you get home send him a nice letter telling him he was right. Is it a bargain?”
“My dear Captain, it certainly is; and I appreciate your interest very much and won’t fail you and the good doctor.”
He had regained his smiling manner: “Captain, why are we men such restless wanderers? You could settle down in your nice little cottage at Bournemouth, draw your pension, trim your apple trees, read your old friend Marryat, chat with Mrs. Pollard and curse the Liberal Party; and I--I could write my memoirs, raise tulips and roses and blooded sheep, sneer at the Radicals and Progressives, and criticize the weak policy of the Hapsburgs! What fun we could have, Hein?”
“Your Excellency, I guess we both do what we believe to be our duty. Neither of us is good at idling, I think, and our work is our life. Some day I might do as you say--but I hope that day is a long way off,” with a merry chuckle.
A crunching sound against the ship’s side and the pilot’s dingy pulled by two powerful negroes had come alongside. With the pilot two other figures were visible in the dim light. The nimble, old, beturbaned Arab pilot, with broad red sash around his ample waist, swung himself aboard, the two men following him.
On the upper deck the conversation which had lagged during this busy interval was further interrupted by the approach of a steward in search of the Captain.
“Two passengers boarded with the pilot, sir. One of them requests permission to speak to you for a minute, Captain.”