After that, three days to get the casks inboard again and stowed below. Three days in which Dan'l Tobey passed from suffering to delirium. Brander had tended his wound as best he could; but the bone was splintered and the flesh was shattered, and there came an hour when the flesh about the wound turned green and black. It gave off a horrible fetid odor of decay.
Brander told Faith: "He's got to lose either leg or life."
She did not ask him if he were sure; she knew him well enough, now, never to doubt him again. But Dan'l, in an interval of lucidity, had heard; and he croaked:
"Take it off, Brander. Take it off. Get the ax, man."
Brander bent over the man. "I'll do my best for you."
Dan'l grinned with the old jeer in his eyes. "Aye, I've no doubt, Mr. Brander. Go at it, man."
They had not so much as a vial of morphia to deaden the pain; but Dan'l slumped into delirium at the first stroke of the knife Brander had whetted to a razor keenness. His body twitched in the grip of Willis Cox and Loum.... Faith helped Brander tie the arteries; Roy stood by to give what aid he could....
When it was done, Faith said the Sally would lie at anchor till Dan'l died or mended; and in two weeks Brander told her the man would live. She nodded.
"Then we'll go out and fill our casks," she said, "and then for home."
Brander looked at her with shining eyes. "Aye, fill our casks," he agreed, as though it were the most natural thing in the world to stick to that task till it was done. They put to sea.