We ran to
the rails. An elderly man, but whether passenger or seaman it was
impossible in the darkness to determine, lay grovelling on his belly
in the wet scuppers, and kicking feebly with his outspread toes. We
asked him what was amiss, and he replied incoherently, with a strange
accent and in a voice unmanned by terror, that he had cramp in the
stomach, that he had been ailing all day, had seen the doctor twice,
and had walked the deck against fatigue till he was overmastered and
had fallen where we found him.
Jones remained by his side, while O'Reilly and I hurried off to seek
the doctor. We knocked in vain at the doctor's cabin; there came no
reply; nor could we find any one to guide us. It was no time for
delicacy; so we ran once more forward; and I, whipping up a ladder
and touching my hat to the officer of the watch, addressed him as
politely as I could -
'I beg your pardon, sir; but there is a man lying bad with cramp in
the lee scuppers; and I can't find the doctor.'
He looked at me peeringly in the darkness; and then, somewhat
harshly, 'Well, I can't leave the bridge, my man,' said he.
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