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The doctor's dilemma. By Hesba Stretton (1872)
The doctor's dilemma By Hesba Stretton - 1872 Author:Sarah Smith Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER THE THIRD. A ROUGH NIGHT AT SEA. A Mere accident decided it. Near the forepart of the train I saw the broad, tall figure of my new friend, the seam... more »an, making his way across to the boat for the Channel Islands; and almost involuntarily I made up my mind to go on board the same steamer, for I had an instinctive feeling that he would prove a real friend, if I had need of one. He did not see me following; no doubt he supposed I had left the train at Southampton, having only taken my ticket so far; though how I had missed Southampton I could not tell. The deck was wet and slippery, and the confusion upon it was very great. I was too much at home on a steamer to need any directions ; and I went down immediately into the ladies' cabin, which was almost empty, and chose a berth for myself in the darkest corner. It was not far from thedoor, and presently two other ladies came down, with a gentleman and the captain, and held an anxious parley close to me. I listened absently and mechanically, as indifferent to the subject as if it could be of no consequence to me. " Is there any danger ? " asked one of the ladies. " Well, I cannot say positively there will be no danger," answered the captain ; " there's not danger enough to keep me and the crew in port; but it will be a very dirty night in the Channel. If there's no actual necessity for crossing to-night I should advise you to wait, and see how it will be to-morrow. Of course we shall use extra caution, and all that sort of thing. No; I cannot say I expect any great danger." " But it will be awfully rough ? " said the gentleman. The captain answered only by a sound between a groan and a whistle, as if he could not trust himself to think of words that would describe the roughness. There could be no doubt of his mean...« less