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"It was bitter cold," said Hubert in his strong voice, telling them of Mr. Doughty's death, "on the morning itself: and snow lay on the decks when we rose. Mr. Fletcher had prepared a table in the poop-cabin, with a white cloth and bread and wine; and at nine of the clock we were all assembled where we might see into the cabin: and Mr. Fletcher said the Communion service, and Mr. Drake and Mr.
Harvey had asked for a famous Plymouth surgeon to be sent for, and this afternoon he had arrived. On his verdict as to Doughty's condition depended Ishmael's own fate, and he knew it.
In the days which had elapsed since the wrestling bout on the moor Doughty's injury had seemed likely to prove a bad sprain, but there had been a terrible twenty-four hours when the doctor, a portentous person with more pessimism than knowledge, had wagged his head forebodingly over the moaning patient.
Then he relaxed his grip on one of Doughty's legs, at the same time forcing the other outwards with all the strength of his foot and leg. Doughty had to unstiffen a knee to prevent himself coming taut and prone on the ground, and a hard shove with Ishmael's elbow, thrown backwards against his shoulder, combined with the leg-play to send him spinning sideways.
There taking up the north-east trades, they struck across the Atlantic, crossed the line, and made the South American continent in latitude 33° South. They passed the mouth of the Plate River, finding to their astonishment fresh water at the ship's side in fifty-four fathoms. All seemed so far going well, when one morning Mr. Doughty's sloop was missing, and he along with her.
In a fight Doughty's superior size would have given him all the advantage; in the West Country method of wrestling this would not necessarily hold true. And Ishmael was in far better condition. Polkinghorne turned to Hilaria. "Someone will see you home, of course," he said politely. "I shall have to stay as stickler, and Carminow as well, but I'll send Moss and the young 'un with you.
Was this the Ishmael who a half-hour or so ago had put forward the theory that one should never fight till one was sure of winning? He did not know that the wine in Ishmael's brain at that minute was the headiest in the world, the most sure in imparting sense of power the sudden up-welling of the joy of life. It was Doughty's turn to laugh now; he seemed suddenly to have recovered poise.
Doughty had ensconced himself by her, crowding between her and Ishmael to do so, a manoeuvre which the latter, rather to Doughty's surprise, did not seem to resent. This was the more odd as the boys had several times already, both in school and out of it, come into conflict over trifling matters, not so much from any desire to quarrel as because they were by nature extremely antipathetic.
A long course of the ordinary facile stuff, such as one gets in the Press every day, thinking it is English, sends one thoughtless and headlong among the bitter herbs and stark boulders of Doughty's burning and spacious expanse; only to get bewildered, and the shins broken, and a great fatigue at first, in a strange land of fierce sun, hunger, glittering spar, ancient plutonic rock, and very Adam himself.
On June 20 they reached Port St. Julian, on the coast of Patagonia. They had been long on the way, and the southern winter had come round, and they had to delay further to make more particular inquiry into Doughty's desertion. An ominous and strange spectacle met their eyes as they entered the harbour.
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