take it.'

"'I don't,' she said. She was quiet enough, but she seemed a very wilful
woman. 'I've got my job here.'

"I told her that the skipper of her ship would never carry out his
orders, because they could not be carried out. I told her, what was
perfectly true, that their craft would rot on a sandbar, or find
cataracts, or that they'd all get eaten by cannibals, or die of something
nasty. I admit I tried to frighten her.

"'It's no good, Doctor,' she said. 'You can't worry me. I've got my
work to do in this ship, like the others.'

"'Pooh!' I said to her. 'Cooking and that. Anybody could do it. Let
the men do it. It's not a woman's job.'

"'You're wrong,' she said. 'It's mine. You don't know.'

"I began to get annoyed with this stubborn creature. I told her she
would die, if she didn't leave the working of that ship to those who
ought to do it.

"'Who ought?' she asked me, in a bit of a temper. 'I know what I have to
do. I'm going through with it. It's no good talking. I'll take my
chance, like the rest.'

"So I had to tell her that I was there because the master of her ship had
sent for me to give my advice. My business was to say what she ought to
do.