Sail Ho! Part 54

I found him very stubbornly silent with the doctor, who did not seem to think him very bad; and to all the sharp appeals to him to try and sit up, or explain his symptoms, he only gave vent to a piteous kind of groan which worried me a good deal, for I could not help thinking that Mr Frewen was hard, and to put it plainly, rather brutal, to one who had evidently gone through a great deal of suffering, and was now completely prostrate.

But certainly it had been rather tantalising, for to everything there was this piteous groan.

"Put out your tongue," said Mr Frewen.

"Oh!"

"Well, open your eyes."

"Oh!"--long drawn out, and strange.

"Surely that does not hurt you, my lad. I want to do you good if I can."

"Oh!"

"Are you in pain?"

"Oh!"

"Does that hurt you?"

"Oh!"

"Can you feel it if I press your chest?"

"Oh!"

"Stand a little on one side, Dale; I want to look at his eyes."

I stepped back, feeling very uncomfortable, and Mr Frewen parted the lad's eyelids gently enough.

"Oh!" came more loudly than ever, as Mr Frewen looked closely into first one and then the other eye.

Another moan and groan came fast one after the other, sometimes loud and sometimes piteous in the extreme, making me shiver again as I imagined all kinds of horrors.

At first Mr Frewen was very gentle in his examination; but as Walters kept on groaning, the doctor seemed to lose patience, and in feeling the patient's ribs, testing his arms and joints, he was, I thought, unnecessarily rough and harsh.

Mr Frewen did not speak out, but kept on uttering little e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns; and at last he began to pa.s.s his hands over and around Walters' skull, while I shuddered, and fully expected to hear the broken bone-edges grate together from a fracture.

But the doctor let my messmate's head sink down again, quickly too, for Walters uttered a thrilling moan and let his face hang down away from the doctor, looking so ghastly and strange that I was more horrified than ever in the dim cabin-light.

I looked anxiously at the doctor, silently asking him what was the matter; but he only gave me a short nod of the head, and once more directed his attention to Walters, who lay breathing slowly in a catchy, spasmodic fashion, and I was almost about to question Mr Frewen, but he once more bent over the prisoner patient, listening to his breathing.

I saw him frown and then lay his hand upon Walters' side, and then I started, for there came so piteous a groan that I was sure the ribs must have been crushed, and I felt angry with him for not being more sympathetic.

"He went against us and played the blackguard," I thought to myself; "but he has been severely punished, and is down, so it isn't right to jump upon him."

I felt then that I disliked Mr Frewen, who must be a cold-hearted, brutal kind of man, and I was not surprised at Mr Denning the invalid showing so much dislike to him now.

"Yes, he's very bad," said Mr Frewen at last, "I shall have to get ready a mixture for him--something pretty strong too."

I was looking anxiously in his eyes as he said this, and then we both looked at Walters, for the poor fellow winced and moaned again.

"Yes," said Mr Frewen to me, but watching his patient the while; "medicine is as a rule very nasty, and the strong mixtures worst of all; but there are cases where you cannot hesitate to administer them, even if they are distasteful; and where you disguise their taste with syrups and essential oils you often do harm instead of good."

"Do you think he is very bad, Mr Frewen?" I said.

"Oh yes--very," was the reply. "Not dangerous!" I whispered.

"Yes, decidedly dangerous," he said, in the same low tone.

"Then he ought not to be left?"

"Oh yes, better left. He'll come round. There, I'm going to see how the other prisoners are getting on. I'm afraid that I am badly wanted there."

He stood looking down at the patient with his brow knit, and I noticed a fidgety movement about one of his feet.

"Oughtn't I to stop and nurse him?" I asked.

"No; certainly not. He is better alone. This kind of case does not require attention--only time. Come along," and he went to the door.

"All right, Mr Frewen; I'll come directly," I said softly.

"But I want to fasten the door," he whispered.

"I'll fasten it when I come out."

"No, that will not do; Mr Brymer said that the door was to be kept fast, and I can't go away and leave it."

"But I want to talk to him," I whispered. "Lock me in for a bit."

"And suppose he turns savage with you, and tries to get your weapons?"

whispered Mr Frewen, with a smile.

"I shan't let him have them," I replied. "Besides, he's weak and ill."

"Humph!--not so very, my lad. There, I'll lock you in, and come and let you out in a quarter of an hour."

He closed and locked the cabin door sharply, and I stood there thinking what I should say to my old messmate, and feeling how awkward it was now he was in trouble. For he lay there half turned away with his eyes closed, and I heard him moan piteously again while I waited to hear Mr Frewen's departing step.

But it did not come for a few moments. Then I heard him go into the adjoining cabin, and the opening of his medicine-chest quite plainly.

"I don't believe he wants medicine," I thought. "He must be suffering from some internal injury." Though as to what part of his body the injury might be in, I had not the slightest idea.

There was a loud clink of bottle or gla.s.s, and then quite plainly came the setting down of something hard upon a shelf, the sound coming plainly through the opening we had so laboriously made when Mr Preddle was a prisoner in this cabin, and Mr Frewen and I in the next.

Then I heard a loud cough. There was a squeaking sound of a cork being thrust into a bottle, and the doctor went out of his cabin, shut the door sharply, and went off, while it was like an electric shock through me, and I stared wildly, for Walters started up, and in a vicious angry voice exclaimed--