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“So much so,” I replied, “that I hope to write a paper to be read before the College of Surgeons. What little we ate appeared to be entirely used up by our bodies.”

“It is a miracle that you are alive. But your constitutions have been too much impaired to withstand such a climate as this. I am concerned about Mr. Bligh. Should he stay long ...” He shrugged his shoulders, paused for a moment, and went on: “I have never known a man of greater determination! With such a fever, most men would be on their backs. Yet he goes daily into the town to transact his business. I have spoken to the governor. Mr. Bligh will be permitted to take passage, with two others, on the packet sailing on the sixteenth of this month.”

“You are kind indeed, sir! Mr. Bligh shared all of our sufferings, and, in addition, the entire responsibility was his. The strain had impaired his health gravely; I have feared more than once that he might leave his bones here.”

“That possibility is by no means remote,” said Sparling. “There is a high mortality here amongst Europeans. Mr. Bligh, I can see, is a man who will attend to his duty even to the serious prejudice of his health. Do what you can, Mr. Ledward, to urge upon him the necessity for caution.”