The general called it a criminal error
to plant the victims of a deadly contagion along a great national
highway, like fertile seed in a fertile furrow. The bishop counted it no
mercy to the aliens themselves to keep them aboard when they could be
set ashore in a rough sort of roofless quarantine on some such isolated
spot as Prophet's Island, which should be reached by sunrise, was
heavily wooded, and lay but six miles below the small town of Port
Hudson.
Nor could he call it a mercy to consult the immigrants' wishes. How
could they be expected to view the matter unselfishly?
A deputation of seven elected itself to wait on the captain. The
masterful twins, finding themselves not of its number, sought him in
advance, alone. But their interview was brief. We pass it. The first
_watch_ turned in. The men who had served through the first two hours'
run came again on duty as "middle watch," and in their care, after their
four hours' rest, the shining _Votaress_, teeming with slumberers,
breasted the strenuous flood as regally as ever.
XII
HUGH AND THE TWINS
In the captain's chair, between the derricks and the bell, far above and
behind which the chimneys' vast double plume of smoke and sparks trailed
down the steamer's wake, sat Hugh Courteney, quite uncompanioned.
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