Fire Island Part 45

"Nice clean tunnel, indeed!" said Oliver, whose deadly faintness was giving way to irritability, caused by the sharp pain. "I only, as I said before, wish I knew who shot me. How could a man be so stupid?"

"Well, I'll tell you," said the mate, as he softly dried the wounds.

"If people come rus.h.i.+ng out of a fog in company with a lot of yelling savages, they can't expect other people to know the difference. The fact is, my lad, I fired that shot, for it was a bullet out of the captain's gun."

"You, Mr Rimmer!"

"Yes, my lad, and I'm very thankful."

"What, that you shot me?"

"Yes, through the arm instead of through the chest, for I couldn't have doctored you then."

"I say! Oh! What are you doing?" cried Oliver.

"That's right, have a rousing shout if it will do you good, my lad,"

said the mate, whose fingers were busy. "But that's right, don't shrink," he continued as he went on with his task, which was that of plugging the two mouths of the wound with lint--

"Hallo! What is it?"

A sailor's head had appeared inside the cabin door.

"Mr Drew says, sir, as the savages are coming back, and would you like to come on deck?"

"Yes, of course," said the mate hastily. "Go and tell him I'm coming."

"Yes, sir."

The man disappeared, and the mate turned to Smith.

"Here," he said, "carefully and tightly bind up Mr Lane's arm, so that the plugs cannot come out."

"Me, sir? Don't you want me to come and fight?"

"I want you to obey orders," said the mate, sharply. "There, you will not hurt, Mr Lane; and as for you, Mr Panton, don't let imagination get the better of you, sir. I'll come down again as soon as I can."

"You won't hurt, sir," said Smith, with rough sympathy, as he took up the bandage and examined the injured arm by the light of the lamp. "But he can. All very fine for him to say that, after ramming in a couple o'

pellets just as if he was loading an elder-wood pop-gun. Look here, sir, shall I take 'em out again?"

"No, no," said Oliver, trying hard to bear the acute pain he suffered, patiently.

"But they must hurt you 'orrid, and he won't know when the bandage is on."

"Tie up my arm, man," said Oliver, shortly. "It is quite right. That's better--Tighter.--No, no, I can't bear it. Yes: that will do. How are you getting on, Panton?"

"Badly. Feel as if someone was boring a hole in my shoulder with a red hot poker."

"So do I," said Oliver; "and as if he had got quite through, and was leaving the poker in to burn the hole bigger."

"Serve you right."

"Why?"

"You were always torturing some poor creature, sticking pins through it to 'set it up' as you call it."

"But not alive. I always poisoned them first."

"Worse and worse," said Panton, trying hard to preserve his calmness, and to master the horror always to the front in his thoughts, by speaking lightly. "That's what I believe they have done to me, but they've failed to get me as a specimen."

"Haw, haw, haw!" laughed Smith.

"Quiet, sir!" cried Oliver. "What have you got to laugh at?"

"Beg pardon," said the man, pa.s.sing his hand across his mouth, as if the laugh required wiping away, "but it seemed so comic for the natives to be trying to get a spessermen of an English gent, to keep stuffed as a cur'osity."

"Ah, they wouldn't have done that, Smith, my lad. More likely to have rolled me up in leaves to bake in one of their stone ovens, and then have a feast."

"Well, they aren't got yer, sir, and they sha'n't have yer, if me and Billy Wriggs can stop it."

"G.o.d bless you both, my lads," said Panton huskily. "You stood by me very bravely."

"Oh, I don't know, sir," said Smith bashfully. "People as is out together, whether they're gents or only common sailors, is mates yer know for the time, and has to stand by one another in a scrimmage. Did one's dooty like, and I dessay I could do it again, better than what I'm a doing here. My poor old mother never thought I should come to be a 'orspittle nuss. Like a drink a' water, sir?"

"Yes, please, my mouth's terribly dry."

Smith looked round, but there was no water in the cabin, and he went out to get some from the breaker on deck, but he had not reached halfway to the tub, before there was a sharp recommencement of the firing, and he knew by the yelling that the savages were making a fresh attack.

The sailor forgot all about the wounded in the cabin, and running right forward, he seized a capstan bar for a weapon, and then went to the side waiting to help and repel the attack, if any of the enemy managed to reach the deck.

But evidently somewhat daunted by the firearms and the injuries inflicted upon several of their party, the savages did not come too near, but stood drawing their bows from time to time, and sending their arrows up in the air, so that they might fall nearly perpendicularly upon the deck. Many times over the men had hairbreadth escapes from arrows which fell with a sharp whistling sound, and stuck quivering in the boards, while the mate made the crew hold their fire.

"Firing at them is no good," he said, "or they would have stopped away after the first volleys. Let them shoot instead and waste their arrows.

They'll soon get tired of that game. So long as they don't hurt us, it's of no consequence. All we want, is for them to leave us alone."

"But it does not seem as if they would do that," said Drew, to whom he was speaking.

"Well, then, if they will not, we must give them another lesson, and another if it comes to that. We're all right now in our bit of a fort, but it seems queer to be in command of a s.h.i.+p that will not--Hah! Look at that!" he cried, stooping to pull from the deck an arrow which had just fallen with a whizz. "You may as well keep some of these and take 'em home for curiosities, sir. There's no trickery or deceit about them. They were not made for trade purposes, but for fighting."

"And are they poisoned?" said Drew anxiously.

"Best policy is to say no they are not, sir. We don't want to frighten Mr Panton into the belief that he has been wounded by one, for if he does, he'll get worse and worse and die of the fancy; whereas, after the spirits are kept up, even if the arrow points have been dipped into something nasty, he may fight the trouble down and get well again. I say, take it that they are not poisoned and let's keep to that, for many a man has before now died from imagination. Why, bless me! if the men got to think that the savages' weapons were poisonous, every fellow who got a scratch would take to his bunk, and we should have no end of trouble."

"I suppose so," said Drew. "But tell me, what do you think of my companions' wounds?"

"Well, speaking as a man who has been at sea twenty years, and has helped to do a good deal of doctoring with sticking plaster and medicine chest--for men often get hurt and make themselves ill--I should say as they've both got nasty troublesome wounds which will pain them a bit for weeks to come, but that there's nothing in them to fidget about. Young hearty out-door-living fellows like yourselves have good flesh, and if it's wounded it soon heals up again."

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Of course, sir: when you're young you soon come right. It's when you are getting old, and fidget and worry about your health, that you get better slowly. Hah! there's another stuck up in the mainsail. That won't hurt anybody."