Drax exposed and attacks Brownlee

The exposure of Henry Drax’s crimes turns on a small object recovered during an examination: a child’s tooth lodged in his arm. Patrick Sumner recognizes its evidentiary force, but the discovery does not lead directly to an orderly arrest. Drax responds with violence, striking Arthur Brownlee and fighting Cavendish before Black intervenes. The scene makes the tooth both proof and catalyst: a fragment that changes what the men know, then precipitates an immediate struggle over who can act on that knowledge.

The Wound and the Discovery

Brownlee notices that Drax’s right arm is swollen and directs him to show it to the surgeon, explaining that an injury to the arm could keep him from harpooning or rowing. The wound, high on the forearm near the elbow, is infected. Sumner recommends opening it and drawing out the remaining infection, and asks why Drax did not come for treatment earlier. Drax dismisses the injury as a minor nick, a denial that contrasts with the condition Sumner can see and examine.

As Sumner presses the small lump beneath the skin, it shifts and emerges from the wound. He catches the object in the padding and recognizes it at once: a child’s tooth, broken at the root. Its scale and appearance sharply distinguish it from the surrounding medical materials. A moment earlier, the men were dealing with an injury that might interfere with the ship’s work; now the examination has produced an object Sumner treats as evidence of a crime.

Drax immediately denies that the tooth belongs to him, even after Brownlee points out that it came from his arm. Sumner answers that it is evidence sufficient to see Drax hanged. The claim changes the encounter from a medical consultation into an attempted confrontation with the consequences of Drax’s actions. The scene establishes what Sumner and Brownlee believe the tooth proves, while leaving the object itself to carry the force of the revelation: it has been concealed within Drax’s body, but treatment makes it visible to others.

From Exposure to Violence

Brownlee goes to the cabin door and calls for the first mate. Drax refuses the prospect of being chained and threatens the men. While Brownlee calls again for Cavendish, Drax surveys the cabin for weapons without immediately reaching for one. The table holds a brass sextant; a wall rack contains a spyglass and a heavy whalebone walking stick with an ebony pommel. These objects, ordinary fittings of the cabin until the crisis, become part of the scene’s immediate calculation of force.

Cavendish enters as the others turn toward him. Drax seizes the whalebone stick and strikes Brownlee, then attempts another blow before Cavendish restrains his arm. The struggle shifts from a threat against Brownlee to a physical contest with Cavendish. When the stick falls, Cavendish reaches for it; Drax instead grabs him and strikes him with a knee, leaving him on the floor. The attack disables both men who might have helped contain Drax, while Sumner remains present but has not intervened.

Sumner is still holding the lancet used in the examination and the tooth recovered from Drax’s arm. That juxtaposition gives the episode its distinctive structure: the instrument and evidence belong to the attempt to treat and expose, while the walking stick becomes a weapon used to resist the consequences. Sumner asks what escape could accomplish, but Drax says he will take his chances in a whaleboat rather than return to England to be hanged. His stated objective is escape from arrest, not a defense of the tooth or an explanation of its presence.

Black’s Intervention and the Turn in Control

Drax orders Sumner to turn around and begins dressing while Sumner faces the cabin wall. Sumner considers the possibility of calling out but does not do so; he closes his eyes and waits, believing a fatal blow may follow. The pause leaves the surgeon exposed and makes the arrival of help a sudden reversal rather than the result of his own action.

A commotion outside is followed by a shotgun blast as the cabin door opens. Black stands in the doorway, aiming the second barrel at Drax. He orders Drax to hand the stick to Sumner and threatens to shoot him if he refuses. Drax pauses, then yields the weapon. Black enters and sees Brownlee and Cavendish unconscious on the floor. The balance of control has changed: Drax had used the cabin’s objects and the men’s divided attention to attack, but Black’s armed presence ends his immediate advantage.

The episode closes with Drax looking down at the tooth on the table where Sumner left it. Its position makes the contrast plain without resolving the larger legal outcome: the evidence remains visible, while the man it implicates is now disarmed and confronted by Black. The discovery has exposed Drax, but it has also shown how quickly proof can give way to threatened escape and violence. The scene’s reversal is therefore practical as well as moral: the tooth alters the meaning of the examination, and Black’s intervention prevents Drax from turning that revelation into an escape through force.