"But I tell you, sir, I come over as quick as I could."
Again Roger spoke caustically.
"But I tell you, sir, I did. And what's more, I can tell you a lot of things you'd like to know. Perhaps you'd like to know—" He stopped short.
Roger regarded him as if in doubt, but presently he said in a low voice,
"All right! Say nothing of this to the others. I'll see you later."
Captain Falk and his crew, meanwhile, had moved away almost unmolested. Their pikes and guns had held off the few natives who made a show of pursuing them, and the great majority of our allies were running riot on the ship, which was a sad sight when we turned to take account of the situation.
Three natives were killed and two were wounded, not to mention my injured shoulder among our own casualties; and two members of the other party in the crew were sprawled in grotesque attitudes on the deck. Counting the one who was hit by a spear and who had fallen out of the boat, it meant that Falk had lost three dead, and if blood on the deck was any sign, others must have been badly slashed. In other words, our party was, numerically, almost the equal of his. Considering the man from Boston as on our side, we were seven to their eight. The lantern that we now lighted revealed more of the gruesome spectacle, and it made me feel sick to see that both the man from Boston and I were covered from head to foot with the gore in which we had been rolling; but to the natives the sight was a stupendous triumph; and the cook, when I next saw him, was walking down the deck, looking at the face of one dead man after another.
By and by he came to me where, overcome by a wave of nausea, I had sat down on the deck with my back against the bulwark. "Dey ain't none of 'em Kipping," he said grimly. Then he saw my bleeding shoulder and instantly got down beside me. "You jest let dis yeh ol' nigger took a hand," he cried. "Ah's gwine fix you all up. You jest come along o' me!" And helping me to my feet, he led me to the galley, where once more he was supreme and lawful master.
In no time at all he had a kettle of water on the stove, in which the coals of a good fire still lingered, and with a clean cloth he washed my wound so gently that I scarcely could believe his great, coarse hands were actually at work on me. "Dah you is," he murmured, bending over the red, shallow gash that the bullet had cut, "dah you is. Don' you fret. Ah's gwine git you all tied up clean an' han'some, yass, sah."
The yells and cries of every description alarmed and agitated us both. It was far from reassuring to know that that mob of natives was ranging the ship at will.
"Ef you was to ask me," Frank muttered, rolling his eyes till the whites gleamed starkly, "Ah's gwine tell you dis yeh ship is sottin', so to speak, on a bar'l of gunpowder. Yass, sah!"