Sail Ho! Part 82

"Good-bye, and G.o.d bless you!" came from the cabin-window, and directly after the same words were spoken by Miss Denning, and I heard Mr Frewen utter a groan.

Another shot came from the ship, whose lanterns showed where she lay, while, but for the golden oil the oars stirred on the surface of the water, our boat must have been invisible, though that bullet was sufficiently well aimed to strike the side of the boat with a sharp crack.

"That will do. In oars!" cried Mr Brymer, when we were about a hundred yards away.

"How can you be such a coward?" I heard Mr Frewen whisper pa.s.sionately.

"No coward, sir," replied the mate. "I am ready to risk my life in trying, as is my duty, to save those two pa.s.sengers from harm, but it must be done with guile. It is madness for unarmed men to try and climb up that ship just to be thrown back into the sea."

"Then you will not row right away?" said Mr Frewen, excitedly.

"And leave the ship in the hands of that scoundrel? Is it likely?"

"I beg your pardon, Brymer," whispered Mr Frewen, "I did not know what I was saying. I was half mad."

"My dear fellow, I know," was the mate's reply in the same tone. "I'm not going to give up, nor yet despair. There's always a chance for us.

That scoundrel may come to his end from a quarrel with one of his men; a ship may heave in sight; or we may board and surprise them, and if we do, may I be forgiven, but I'll crush the life out of that wretch as I would destroy a tiger. Now just leave me to do my duty, and do yours."

"What can I do?" replied Mr Frewen. "You do not want me to row away?"

"No; but I do wish you to attend to our wounded."

"Ah! I had forgotten that," said Mr Frewen, hastily bestirring himself. "Here, some one cried out when one of those shots was fired, and again I heard an exclamation just now."

"It was Walters who was. .h.i.t first," I said, from where I knelt in the bottom of the boat.

"Where is he? Somewhere forward?"

"No; here," I said.

"Has any one matches? It is impossible to see," muttered Mr Frewen.

"He is. .h.i.t in the chest, sir," I said.

"How do you know?" cried Mr Frewen. "Is this your hand, my lad? What are you doing?"

"Holding my neckerchief against his side to stop the bleeding," I said in a low voice.

"Hah!"

It was only like a loud expiration of the breath, as Mr Frewen knelt down beside me, and cutting away Walters' jacket he quickly examined the wound by touch, and I then heard him tear my neckerchief and then one of his own pocket-handkerchiefs.

"Your hand here. Now your finger here, my lad," he whispered to me.

"Don't be squeamish. Think that you are trying to save another's life."

"I shan't faint," I said quietly. "It doesn't even make me feel sick."

"That's right, my boy. Now hold that end while I pa.s.s the bandage round his chest."

I obeyed, and there was dead silence in the boat as the doctor busied himself over his patient.

"Is he insensible, sir?" I whispered; "really insensible?"

"Yes, and no wonder."

"Is it a very bad wound?"

"Yes; bad enough. The bullet has pa.s.sed through or else round one of the ribs. It is nearly out on the other side; I could feel it, but it must stay till daylight. That's it.--I've plugged the wound. He cannot bleed now. Thank you, Dale."

"What for, sir?" I said innocently enough.

He did not answer, but busied himself laying Walters down, and then the lad was so silent that a horrible feeling of dread began to trouble me.

I was brought back to other thoughts, though, by the doctor's speaking out of the darkness.

"Who else was hurt?" he said.

"Neb Dumlow's got a hole in him somewheres, sir," said Barney.

"Wish you'd keep that tongue o' yourn quiet, Barney," growled Dumlow.

"Who said he'd got a hole in him, my lad?"

"Why, you did," cried Barney, "and I knowed it without. Didn't I hear you squeak?"

"Well, only just then. It was sharp for a moment, but it's better now."

"Let me pa.s.s you, my man," said the doctor quietly.

"There you are, sir. This way. Neb's on the next thwart."

"You needn't come to me, sir," protested Dumlow. "I'm all light, I tied a bit o' line round the place. You can give me a pill or a shedlicks powder or something o' that kind to-morrow if you like."

"Hold your tongue, Neb, and let the doctor tie you up," growled Bob Hampton. "What's the use of being so jolly independent? Don't you take no notice o' what he says, sir. Dessay he's got a reeg'lar hole in him."

"Tut tut tut!" muttered Mr Frewen. "What is this,--fishing-line?"

"That's it, sir," said Dumlow. "It's right enough, there arn't no k.n.o.bs on it, and it stopped the bleeding fine."

"Difficult work here, Dale," Mr Frewen whispered to me. "One need have well-educated fingers--what surgeons call the _tactus eruditus_--to work like this in the dark."

"Terrible," I replied, and I noticed how his voice trembled. For he seemed to me to be doing everything he could to keep himself from dwelling upon those we had left in the ship.

"Hurt you, my man?" he said to Dumlow.

"Oh, it tingles a bit, sir; but here, stop, hold hard a minute. None o'

them games."

"What games? I don't understand you."

"No takin' advantage of a poor helpless fellow as trusts yer, doctor!"