"Mr Cringle, I have some knowledge of you, and I know many of your
friends; so I must take the liberty of an old acquaintance with you.
This day's work has been a severe one, and your share in it, especially
after your past fatigues, has been very trying, and as I will report it,
I hope it may clap a good spoke in your wheel; but you are overheated,
and have been over--excited; fatigue has broken you down, and I must
really request you will take something warm, and turn in.--Here, Mafame,
get the carpenter's mate to secure that cleat on the weather--side there,
and sling my spare cot for Mr Cringle. You will be cooler here than in
the gunroom."
I heard his words without comprehending their meaning. I sat and stared
at him, quite conscious, all the time, of the extreme impropriety, not to
say indecency, of my conduct; but there was a spell on me; I tried to
speak, but could not; and, believing that I was either possessed by some
dumb evil, or struck with palsy, I rose up, bowed to Captain Transom, and
straightway hied me on deck.
I could hear him say to his servant, as I was going up the ladder, "Look
after that young gentleman, Mafame, and send Isaac to the doctor, and bid
him come here now;" and then, in a commiserating tone--"Poor young
fellow, what a pity!"
When I got on deck all was quiet. The cool fresh air had an
instantaneous effect on my shattered nerves, the violent throbbing in my
head ceased, and I began to hug myself with the notion that my distemper,
whatever it might have been, had beaten a retreat.
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