I shall be on deck." The guard stared in each other's faces, with some alarm, but said nothing, thinking more of the burning ship, which now flamed furiously across the placid water, than of peril nearer home; but as Pine went up the hatchway he met Blunt.
"We've got the fever aboard!" "Good God! Do you mean it, Pine ?" Pine shook his grizzled head sorrowfully.
"It's this cursed calm that's done it; though I expected it all along, with the ship crammed as she is.

When I was in the Hecuba--" "Who is it ?" Pine laughed a half-pitying, half-angry laugh.
"A convict, of course.

Who else should it be?
They are reeking like bullocks at Smithfield down there.

A hundred and eighty men penned into a place fifty feet long, with the air like an oven--what could you expect ?" Poor Blunt stamped his foot.
"It isn't my fault," he cried.

"The soldiers are berthed aft.