The Sea-Witch
THE SEA-WITCH. CHAPTER I. OUTWARD BOUND. OUR story opens in that broad, far-reaching expanse of water which lies deep and blue between the two hemispheres, some fifteen degrees north of the equator, in the latitude of Cuba and the Cape Verd Islands. The delightful trade winds had not fanned the sea on a finer summer's day for a twelvemonth, and the waves were daintily swelling upon the heaving bosom of the deep, as though indicating the respiration of the ocean. It was scarcely a day's sail beyond the flow of the Caribbean Sea, that one of those noblest results of man's handiwork, a fine ship, might have been seen gracefully ploughing her course through the sky-blue waters of the Atlantic. She was close-hauled on the larboard tack, steering east-southeast, and to a sailor's eye presented a certain indescribable
disgraceful! A most disappointing case! A most provoking patient!"
"But surely, sir--" I cried.
"Don't talk to ME, boy! Don't attempt to apologise for her. Such conduct
is unpardonable. She OUGHT to have died. It was her clear duty. I SAID
she would die, and she should have known better than to fly in the face
of the faculty. Her recovery is an insult to medical science. What is
the staff about? Nurse Wade should have prevented it."
"Still, sir," I exclaimed, trying to touch him on a tender spot, "the
anaesthetic, you know! Such a triumph for lethodyne! This case shows
clearly that on certain constitutions it may be used with advantage
under certain conditions."
He snapped his fingers. "Lethodyne! pooh! I have lost interest in it.
Impracticable! It is not fitted for the human species."
"Why so? Number Fourteen proves--"
He interrupted me with an impatient wave of his hand; then he rose and
paced up and down the room testily. After a pause, he spoke again. "The
weak point of lethodyne is this: nobody can be trusted to say WHEN it
may be used--except Nurse Wade,--which is NOT science."
For the first time in my life, I had a glimmering idea that I distrusted
THE SEA-WITCH. CHAPTER I. OUTWARD BOUND. OUR story opens in that broad, far-reaching expanse of water which lies deep and blue between the two hemispheres, some fifteen degrees north of the equator, in the latitude of Cuba and the Cape Verd Islands. The delightful trade winds had not fanned the sea on a finer summer's day for a twelvemonth, and the waves were daintily swelling upon the heaving bosom of the deep, as though indicating the respiration of the ocean. It was scarcely a day's sail beyond the flow of the Caribbean Sea, that one of those noblest results of man's handiwork, a fine ship, might have been seen gracefully ploughing her course through the sky-blue waters of the Atlantic. She was close-hauled on the larboard tack, steering east-southeast, and to a sailor's eye presented a certain indescribable