divided time with its unwelcome outcries, loud like a bull,
thrilling and intense like a mosquito. Even the watch lay
somewhere snugly out of sight.

For some time we observed something lying black and huddled in the
scuppers, which at last heaved a little and moaned aloud. 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.

'No, sir; but you can tell me what to do,' I returned.