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“One of your men is very low,” remarked the Surgeon-General presently; “the one we visited this morning. I fear there is little hope for him.”

“Aye—Hall,” said Bligh. “Poor fellow.”

“The flux seems deadly in these parts,” I observed.

“Yes,” said Sparling. “Few recover from the violent form of the disease. He must have eaten of some infected fruits in Coupang.”

We were silent for a time, while Bligh seemed to be brooding over some unpleasant thought.

“Ledward, I’ve had to part with the launch!” he exclaimed at last.

“You’ve sold her, sir?” I asked.

“Yes. And the schooner, too—but she meant little to me. As for the launch, though I am a poor man, I would gladly give five hundred pounds to take her home!”

“You could get no space for her on the Vlydte?”

“Not a foot! Damme! Not an inch! Not even for my six pots of plants from Timor.”

Sparling nodded. “There are never enough ships in the October fleet,” he remarked. “Every foot of space and every passage has been bespoken for months. It was only through the governor’s influence that I got passage for you and your two men. Should my wife desire to send a few gifts of native manufacture to her uncle at the Cape of Good Hope, I declare to you it would be impossible at this time!”