PART SIX: Captain Silver
Chapter 30: On Parole
(continued)
"Well, well," he said at last, "duty first and pleasure
afterwards, as you might have said yourself, Silver.
Let us overhaul these patients of yours."
A moment afterwards he had entered the block house and
with one grim nod to me proceeded with his work among
the sick. He seemed under no apprehension, though he
must have known that his life, among these treacherous
demons, depended on a hair; and he rattled on to his
patients as if he were paying an ordinary professional
visit in a quiet English family. His manner, I
suppose, reacted on the men, for they behaved to him as
if nothing had occurred, as if he were still ship's
doctor and they still faithful hands before the mast.
"You're doing well, my friend," he said to the fellow
with the bandaged head, "and if ever any person had a
close shave, it was you; your head must be as hard as
iron. Well, George, how goes it? You're a pretty
colour, certainly; why, your liver, man, is upside
down. Did you take that medicine? Did he take that
medicine, men?"
"Aye, aye, sir, he took it, sure enough," returned Morgan.
"Because, you see, since I am mutineers' doctor, or
prison doctor as I prefer to call it," says Doctor
Livesey in his pleasantest way, "I make it a point of
honour not to lose a man for King George (God bless
him!) and the gallows."
The rogues looked at each other but swallowed the home-thrust in silence.
"Dick don't feel well, sir," said one.
"Don't he?" replied the doctor. "Well, step up here,
Dick, and let me see your tongue. No, I should be
surprised if he did! The man's tongue is fit to
frighten the French. Another fever."
"Ah, there," said Morgan, "that comed of sp'iling Bibles."
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