“Ah!” exclaimed the owner of those eyes, “at last the illustrious Captain is himself again. Are you suffering very acutely, noble sir?”
“Suffering?” I whispered. “ Rather! I ache as if I had been beaten to a jelly, and I am as thirsty as a—as a limekiln. Can you by any chance get me something to drink? A bucketful will do to start with.”
“A bucketful!” she murmured, looking anxiously down at me as she laid her long, slender, pointed fingers upon the pulse of my left hand where it rested outside the coverlet. “But no,” she continued, evidently speaking to herself, “his pulse is almost normal, and there is no trace of fever. A bucketful! Oh, these English!”
She shook her head, as though giving up some problem that she found too difficult for solution, and shuffled off, with the curious gait peculiar to Japanese women, without saying another word to me. She approached the other two nurses, at the far end of the ward, and said something which caused them both to turn and stare in my direction. Then the senior of the party, accompanied by the girl whom I had so tremendously astonished, came up to my bedside, looked at me, felt my pulse, and shuffled away again, presently returning with one of those cups with a spout, from which one can drink while in a recumbent position. She placed the point of the spout between my lips, and the next moment I was aware that I was imbibing some delicious broth. But the cup! It was only about the size of an ordinary breakfast cup, and its contents were gone before I could well taste them. I asked for more, and got a second cupful; and then, as I was asking for still more, the Medical Staff of the hospital entered the ward, and the whole crowd turned with one accord and grouped itself around my bed.
The Chief, a keen, clever-looking little fellow, whose age it was impossible to guess at since he was clean shaven, turned to the nurse who was feeding me, and sharply demanded what it was that she was administering. She explained, adding in all seriousness the information that I had demanded a bucketful, whereupon he turned and regarded me with upraised eyebrows, and laid his fingers upon my wrist.
“So you are suffering from extreme thirst, Captain, eh?” he demanded.
I nodded emphatically.
“Ah!” he said, “yes; that was only to be expected. Well—” He turned to the head nurse and gave her certain instructions in so low a tone of voice that I could not catch what he said. Then, drawing a notebook from his pocket, he very carefully and with much consideration wrote what I imagined to be a prescription, tore out the leaf, and handed it to the nurse, with instructions to have it made up. Then, turning again to me, he inquired how I felt. I described my symptoms as well as I could, wondering all the while how it was that I was only able to speak in the merest whisper.
The members of the staff, including the Head himself, could not have listened with more rapt attention, had I been communicating to them some item of intelligence of the most tremendous import; and when I had finished, the Head drew away from my bed to the far end of the room, where for some minutes he appeared to be delivering a lecture to the members of his staff, who had followed him. Then, the lecture being finished, they all came back to the side of my bed, and one of the nurses having carefully folded back the covering as low as my waist, the Head proceeded to deftly loosen the fastenings of an enormous bandage which I now discovered enveloped my chest. This done, I was very tenderly raised to a sitting posture—an operation which gave me excruciating pain, by the way—and the endless turns of the bandage were deftly unwound, one of the nurses seating herself upon the bed and supporting me meanwhile. When at length the bandage was removed, several broad strips of dressing were disclosed, which, upon removal, revealed a ghastly great jagged wound stretching right across my chest, the edges of which had been very neatly drawn together by a number of stitches. Then, for the first time, I remembered the violent blow on the chest which I had received when the bows of the Kasanumi were destroyed. The wound was intently examined by the entire staff, pronounced to be healing most satisfactorily, and then, after being thoroughly sponged with warm water, was re-dressed, and a fresh bandage applied. Meanwhile, I had made the discovery that my head also was enveloped in bandages, and when I asked why, was informed that I had received a scalp wound, which, however, was of no serious consequence. When this also had been re-dressed, the entire operation occupying the best part of half an hour, I felt considerably easier, although much exhausted. While the wound in my chest was being dressed, I had seized the opportunity to look round the ward, and saw that several of the beds were occupied, one of the patients, who appeared to be suffering from a broken arm, being a man whom I appeared to know. As I sat staring at him he turned his head and our eyes met, whereupon, to my amazement, up went his uninjured hand to the salute.
“Who is that man?” I demanded. “I seem to recognise his face.”