Middy and Ensign Part 16

"Do you mean to be a goose?" said Miss Linton, laughing. "There, I did not mean to hurt your feelings," she added frankly; "but come, now, give up all this silly nonsense, and try to remember that you are after all but a boy, whom I want to look upon as a very dear friend."

"Do you really?" said Bob.

"I do, really," said Miss Linton, holding out her hand; "a friend whom I can believe in and trust, out in this dangerous place, and one who will not make my life wretched by being silly, romantic, and sentimental."

Bob gripped the hand extended to him, and held it for a few moments.

"There," he said firmly, as he seemed to shake himself together, "I see it now. It's all right, Miss Linton; and it's better to be a brick of a boy than a weak, puling noodle of a man, isn't it?"

"Indeed it is," cried Miss Linton, laughing merrily.

"There, I'm your man--I mean I'm your boy," cried Bob; "and I'll let you see that I'm a very different fellow to what you think. Now I want to go and see poor old Tom Long. I am sorry he's hurt."

"You are now more like the Bob Roberts, midshipman," said Miss Linton, "whom I saw first some months ago, than I have seen for a long time."

"All right," said Bob; "now let's go and see the other poor boy."

"Come along, then," she said, smiling; "but I'm afraid that Tom Long will not be so easy to convince that he has not yet arrived at years of discretion."

As she spoke Miss Linton softly opened the door unseen, and let Bob Roberts enter a cool and airy well-shaded room, closing the door upon him, and herself gliding away.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

A DISCUSSION UPON WOUNDS.

"Avast there! what cheer, my hearty? Heave ahead, my military swab.

How goes it!" cried Bob, as Tom raised himself a little on his couch, evidently very glad to see his old companion.

"Oh, not quite killed," he said. "Gently; don't shake a fellow to pieces."

"Where's the wound?" cried Bob. "Ain't going to send in the number of your mess, are you?"

"No, I'm not," cried Tom Long, flushing up; "and if I ever do come across the chief fellow who gave me such a nasty dig, he'll remember it to the end of his days."

"What was it--a spear or a kris?" said Bob.

"Kris, right through my left shoulder. Doctor Bolter says if it had been four inches lower it would have been fatal."

"Bother!" cried Bob. "If it had been four inches higher it would have missed you altogether."

"Yes, of course," said Tom; "but it's precious unpleasant to have a fellow stick his skewer right through you."

"Well, I don't know," said Bob, who had made up his mind that the proper thing was to try and cheer the ensign, and not to let him think he was very bad. "I think I'd just as soon have it right through as only half-way."

"Oh, it's nothing to laugh at, I can tell you," said Tom Long, "I don't see why you mightn't just as well have had it as me. You always get off all right."

"I didn't last night, or rather this morning," said Bob. "I was right into the prahu we tried to take--first man, sir--I mean boy, sir; and I was sawing away at a mat with my knife, when all came down by the run, and I was pitched into the river."

"And picked out," said the ensign impatiently.

"Yes, but not before I'd been swimming for a quarter of an hour--good measure. Oh, I say, Tom, didn't I think of the crocodiles!"

"You're such a cheeky little beggar, I wonder they didn't get you," said Tom, who looked feverish and excited. "I say, Bob Roberts, you know what that chap, that Kling fellow, said to us about the krises."

"Yes, of course. What then?"

"Do you think they are poisoned?"

"No, not a bit. Do you?"

"Yes," said the young ensign; "and I am sure this one was, for I can feel the wound throbbing and stabbing, and a curious sensation running to my finger ends."

"Well, so one did when one had a bad cut," said Bob sharply. "Bah!

poisoned! it's all rubbish. Why, if you had been poisoned you'd have been sleepy and stupid."

"I feel so now."

"What--stupid?" said Bob, grinning. "Well that's natural: you always were?"

"I can't get up and cane you, Bob Roberts," said the ensign, slowly.

"Of course you can't, old man. But there, don't you worry; that kris wasn't poisoned, or you'd feel very different to what you do now."

"Think so?"

"Sure of it."

"How do you know?" said Tom Long, peevishly. "You were never wounded by a poisoned weapon."

"No, but I've seen somebody else, and watched him."

"What was he wounded with?"

"Serpent's tooth," said Bob; "Private Gray."

"Why, that's a different thing altogether," said Long.

"No it isn't, Mr Clevershakes. The snake's poison goes into the blood, don't it, same as that of a kris, and the symptoms would be just the same."

Tom Long seemed to think there was something in this, and he lay thinking for a minute.

"How did Gray look?" he said. "I don't remember."

"Just the same as you don't look," said Bob, sharply; "so don't be a stupid and frighten yourself worse. Malay krises are not poisoned, and it's all a c.o.c.k-and-bull story."

"What is?" said Doctor Bolter, entering the room.