The doctor, without giving him time to exclaim, stated
briefly the part played by Hirsch during the night.
Captain Mitchell was overcome. "Drowned!" he muttered, in a bewildered
and appalled whisper. "Drowned!" Afterwards he kept still, apparently
listening, but too absorbed in the news of the catastrophe to follow the
doctor's narrative with attention.
The doctor had taken up an attitude of perfect ignorance, till at last
Sotillo was induced to have Hirsch brought in to repeat the whole story,
which was got out of him again with the greatest difficulty, because
every moment he would break out into lamentations. At last, Hirsch
was led away, looking more dead than alive, and shut up in one of the
upstairs rooms to be close at hand. Then the doctor, keeping up his
character of a man not admitted to the inner councils of the San Tome
Administration, remarked that the story sounded incredible. Of course,
he said, he couldn't tell what had been the action of the Europeans, as
he had been exclusively occupied with his own work in looking after the
wounded, and also in attending Don Jose Avellanos.
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