he must presently correct. Meanwhile Mr. Blood was speaking again, his tone quietly insistent."In the name of humanity," he repeated, "ye'll allow me to do what I can to ease his sufferings, or I swear to you that I'll forsake at once the duties of a doctor, and that it's devil another patient will I attend in this unhealthy island at all."
For an instant the Colonel was too amazed to speak. Then--
"By God!" he roared. "D'ye dare take that tone with me, you dog? D'ye dare to make terms with me?"
"I do that." The unflinching blue eyes looked squarely into the Colonel's, and there was a devil peeping out of them, the devil of
recklessness that is born of despair.
Colonel Bishop considered him for a long moment in silence. "I've been too soft with you," he said at last. "But that's to be mend-ed." And he tightened his lips. "I'll have the rods to you, until there's not an inch of skin left on your dirty back."
"Will ye so? And what would Governor Steed do, then?" "Ye're not the only doctor on the island."
Mr. Blood actually laughed. "And will ye tell that to his excellency, him with the gout in his foot so bad that he can't stand? Ye know very well it's devil another doctor will he tolerate, being an intelligent man that knows what's good for him."
But the Colonel's brute passion thoroughly aroused was not so easily to be baulked. "If you're alive when my blacks have done with you, perhaps you'll come to your senses."
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