"Starved?—no! Catch us starving! We've got a whole tribe to back us. But Bonney, old boy, what's the matter with your arm?" exclaimed Kit.
"Oh! nothing very bad," replied Bonney, laughing and looking to the captain.
"Splinter hit him," said Capt. Mazard significantly.
"You don't say!" Kit exclaimed. "Did they come so near you as that?"
"So near's that!" blustered old Trull. "Guess you'd 'a' said so! Why, look at the after-bulwarks! and look at the windlass!"
The taffrail was gone, sure enough, and the stern bulwarks broken and patched up down to the deck. The windlass was torn up too.
"Whew!" from all of us.
"Only one shot hit us," explained the captain. "Glanced up from the water through the stern, knocked up the taffrail, and then went forward: just missed the mast, but hit the windlass. Haven't been able to anchor since."
"Well, I'll be blamed!" exclaimed Wade. "Hurt you much, Bonney?"
"Broke his arm!" said the captain.