“Ah, there,” said Morgan, “that comed of sp’iling Bibles.”

“That comed⁠—as you call it⁠—of being arrant asses,” retorted the doctor, “and not having sense enough to know honest air from poison, and the dry land from a vile, pestiferous slough. I think it most probable⁠—though, of course, it’s only an opinion⁠—that you’ll all have the deuce to pay before you get that malaria out of your systems. Camp in a bog, would you? Silver, I’m surprised at you. You’re less of a fool than many, take you all round; but you don’t appear to me to have the rudiments of a notion of the rules of health.

“Well,” he added, after he had dosed them round, and they had taken his prescriptions, with really laughable humility, more like charity schoolchildren than blood-guilty mutineers and pirates, “well, that’s done for today. And now I should wish to have a talk with that boy, please.”

And he nodded his head in my direction carelessly.