"Lor' bless you, no, sir! I tell you, Mr. Jack, they just sailed as close as they dared to those islands, and skipped—the hull pack of 'em; first having headed the Orchid out as we found her. That's why everything was so quiet the larst part of the night—there warn't anyone here to make a noise!"
Passing back to the galley we saw half our crew, in a circle, looking down at the wounded man.
"Who is it, Tommy?" I asked. "Not the old scoundrel himself, by any good luck?"
"Stranger yet," he said, waving the others back and standing up, "It's your black giant of the Key West docks!"
"How the devil did he get here?" I cried, pushing between the men and also looking down at him. "How did he get here?" I asked again, but Tommy had gone.
Someone had put a cushion under his head. His eyes were open, gazing up with their former gentle expression; more sad now, I fancied, since the great human machine he had controlled was wounded.
"How did he get here?" I repeated my general question, this time straight at him.
His lips moved with a curious, rather horrible, inarticulate sound, and his glance swept our crew as though in search of a face. Then he seemed to give it up, and passed a hand slowly over his forehead. I was about to order him carried on deck when Tommy called through the galley portlight:
"Fetch your wounded, Jack! The professor's here with his outfit!"
As our men stooped to obey the big fellow surprised us by quietly arising; and, when cushions had been arranged in a shaded place above, he laid on them as obediently as a docile mastiff. Monsieur, very much in his element, became busy at once.