The surgeon sat up with him nearly all
night: in the daytime those two friends sat for hours in his cabin,
watching sadly, and silently moistening his burning brow and his parched
lips.
At length, one afternoon, there came a crisis, which took an unfavourable
turn. Then the surgeon, speaking confidentially to these two staunch
friends, inquired if they had asked themselves what should be done with
the body? "Why I ask," said he, "is because we are in a very hot
latitude; and if you wish to convey it to Barkington, the measures ought
to be taken in time: in fact, within an hour or two after death."
The poor friends were shocked and sickened by this horrible piece of
foresight. But Colonel Kenealy said, with tears, in his eyes, that his
old friend should never be buried like a kitten.
"Then you had better ask Sharpe to give me an order for a barrel of
spirits," said the surgeon.
"Yes, yes, for two if you like. Oh, don't die, Dodd, my poor old fellow.
How shall I ever face his wife--I remember her, the loveliest girl you
ever saw--with such a tale as this? She will think it a cruel thing I
should come out of it without a scratch, and a ten times better man to be
dead: and so it is; it is cruel, it is unjust, it is monstrous; him to be
lying there, and we muffs to be sitting croaking over him and watching
for his last breath like three cursed old ravens.
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