Jack at Sea Part 63

"The enemy's coming out to sea," he said, "and making north; they'll be in a fix if the wind rises, for they are cl.u.s.tering in their canoes like bees. How's the patient?"

"Bad," said Sir John.

"Tut--tut--tut!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the captain. "I am sorry. But you'll pull him through, doctor?"

"If I can," said Doctor Instow coldly.

"That's right. I have been so full up with my work that I seem to have taken hardly any notice of him. Wound through his arm. You have well cleansed it, of course?"

"Of course, and injected things to neutralise the poison."

"Ah!" cried the captain, angrily, "it takes all one's sympathy with the miserable savages away when one finds that they fight in so cowardly, so fiendish a fashion. I was ready to be sorry for them when I was crushing their boat. But this makes me feel as if one ought to lose no opportunity for sweeping the venomous wretches off the face of the earth. They have no excuse, you see. It is our lives or theirs. We are inoffensive enough surely; and they would have gained by our presence if they had been friendly. But they're nearly all alike."

"Have you seen cases like this before?" asked the doctor.

"Oh yes, several."

"And after a few hours' struggle the strength of the poison dies out, and the sufferer recovers?"

The captain glanced in the direction of Jack, and seeing that his attention was apparently entirely taken up by the sufferer, he said in a low tone--"Yes, sir, the strength of the poison died out, but the wounded man died too;" and every word went through Jack like some keen blade, and for the moment he drew his breath with as much difficulty as the man before him.

"In the cases I saw there was no doctor near at hand, and we who attended the poor fellows could do no more than try to draw the poison from the wounds and burn them out. But it seemed to me that the poison acted like the bite, of a snake, and altered the blood, while at last the symptoms were like those I have heard of when the patient has lock-jaw."

"Teta.n.u.s," said the doctor gravely.

"But it can't be so hopeless here. You were with him and attended him from the first."

"Yes; I have done all I can for him, poor fellow, and with his fine physique he may fight through it."

"Would amputation have saved him?" asked Sir John.

"I do not believe it would have had any effect upon a wound like that, even if it had been performed ten minutes after the injury," said the doctor. "The circulation is so rapid that the poison is running through the system at once, and to proceed to such an extremity seems to be giving the patient another terrible shock to fight against when his state is bad enough without."

"Then you have done everything you can?"

"Everything. He is beyond human aid."

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

THE CREW HAVE THEIR OWN OPINIONS.

The utter exhaustion produced by the struggle on the mountain slope and through the forest died away with Jack in the light of the terrible trouble which had come upon him; and as the afternoon wore on he just partook of such food as his father brought to him, for he would not leave the wounded man's side; and at last sunset came as they lay about a couple of miles out softly rocking upon the calm sea. He had heard how the canoes had been watched till they disappeared below the horizon line, and that all danger from another attack had pa.s.sed away, but that seemed nothing in the face of this great trouble.

The night was approaching fast, and Jack shuddered at the thought of the darkness, and what it would bring; and once more it seemed impossible that the strong, active fellow who had been his companion that morning should be pa.s.sing away.

If he could only have done something besides kneel there, keeping the poor fellow's head cool--something that would have helped him in his terrible fight with death--he would not have suffered so much; but to be so completely impotent seemed more than he could bear.

"You will go to bed early, Jack," said his father that evening, when the cabin was almost dark from the lamp being turned low.

"No, father; I am going to stop here, please," he replied.

"I will take your place, my boy. I feel too that we owe a great duty to the faithful fellow who has served us so long. You are tired out."

"No, father, I don't feel a bit tired now. Don't ask me to leave him.

It is so hard with no one who knows him here; and I feel as if he will come to his senses some time, and would like to speak to me. I never did anything for him, but he always seemed to like me."

"Very well, Jack," said Sir John quietly, "I will not press you to go.

But you will take necessary refreshment from time to time?"

"I could not touch anything," said the boy with a shudder.

"If you do not you will break down."

"Tell the steward to bring me some tea, then, by and by. You will go to bed?"

"I? No, my boy. I could not sleep."

Jack was left alone with the patient save when every half-hour or so the doctor and Sir John came down from the deck to minister in some way, and the long-drawn-out night slowly pa.s.sed, with poor Ned breathing painfully, and lying nearly motionless, till a faint light began to come through the cabin windows, and the distant cries of birds floated to him over the sea.

Another day was at hand, and the solemnity of the hour seemed appalling to the watcher as he rose and went to the open window. A sense of the terrible loneliness of the sea oppressed him, and, exhausted now, he felt how helpless he was, how awful and strange was the change from night to the coming of another day.

There was not a sound to be heard on deck, though he knew that there were watchers there too, but not a footfall nor a whisper could be heard.

He stood there looking at the paling stars and the faint streaks of soft light low down in the east, till the black water stretching out to the horizon grew to be of a dull leaden grey, which gradually became silvery with a peculiar sheen, and then all at once there was the tiny fiery spot high up to the right above where the reef encircled the island, which was too distant now, after the night's steady glide away upon the current, for the breakers to be heard.

"Will he live to see the sun rise once more?" thought the boy, as the silvery sheen grew brighter on the surface of the sea, and then he started, and a great dread came upon him, for he felt that the time had come, for a faint voice said--

"Is that you, Mr Jack?"

Jack's first thought was to call the doctor from the deck, but he did not, he stepped quickly to the couch.

"I thought it was your back, sir. I've been watching you ever so long.

I say, hadn't you better have the lamp lit, and let some of 'em carry me to my berth?"

"The lamp lit, Ned?" faltered Jack, with his heart fluttering the while.

"Yes, sir; it'll be quite dark directly."

"Yes," thought the lad, with a pang of misery shooting through him as he realised that after all this man was a friend that he could not afford to lose, "it will be quite dark directly."

"I'd go and fetch one, sir, but I don't feel up to it. I should go down on my nose if I tried to stand; and," he continued, laughing weakly, "smash the gla.s.s shade."

"Ned!" cried Jack, catching his hand, which closed upon it tightly.

"Have I been lying here all the afternoon, sir?"

"Yes--yes," sighed Jack, and he tried to withdraw his hand so as to call for help; but Ned clung to it tightly.