I couldn't understand.

The whole ship's crew is gone, except the captain absent on leave and the first officer, Thomaso, who deserted with some Lascar stokers, and left the women and children to their fate.

My God, I'm going mad.

I'm going mad! If you have any mercy in you, give me something to drink." "All right," I said, "I will.

Sit here and wait a minute." Then I went to the waggon and poured out a stiff tot of spirits into which I put an amazing doze of bromide from a little medicine chest I always carry with me, and thirty drops of chlorodyne on the top of it.
All this compound I mixed up with a little water and took it to him in a tin cup so that he could not see the colour.
He drank it at a gulp and throwing the pannikin aside, sat down on the veld, groaning while the company watched him at a respectful distance, for Hans had joined the others and his tale had spread like fire in drought-parched grass.
In a few minutes the drugs began to take effect upon Robertson's tortured nerves, for he rose and said quietly, "What now ?" "Vengeance, or rather justice," I answered.
"Yes," he exclaimed, "vengeance.