"I've been too soft with you," he said at last.

"But that's to be mended." 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." He swung to his negroes to issue an order.