“Don’t, don’t ye? Well, if I should be asked what I think, I should say they had planned the whole business long before we got in, an’ that they was only waiting their chance to get you out of the way once for all. But now I hope we’ll have a happy as well as a smart ship. You’ve only got to hurry up and get better, because I can’t have you laid up now, ye know. We may raise whale at any minute between here and the cruisin’ grounds, an’ I know it wouldn’t be good for you to be lyin’ here while we’re havin’ all the fun. So give your mind to gettin’ well.”
The skipper had hardly gone when Merritt appeared, and sending the attendant forrard, proceeded to make C. B. comfortable, renew the dressings on his wounds, etc., with infinite patience and tenderness, looking all the time as grim and savage as if he were meditating murder. At last C. B., laying his hand affectionately upon his friend’s arm, said—
“Thank you so much, dear man, for making me so comfortable, but why are you looking so mad? I wish you wouldn’t, it grieves me to see that terrible look in your eyes.”
“All right,” growled Merritt, “I’ll try and look as pleasant as my ugly mug will let me, for your sake. But when I see how you’ve been served, I can’t help feeling sorry that I didn’t put all them Portuguese dogs beyond the possibility of ever doin’ any more harm. Anyhow, I got one consolation, they’ll probably die as it is. An’ if I only knew they would, I’d be easy in my mind.”
“Oh, chum, chum, don’t talk like that, you don’t know how it hurts me. If I thought you were joking I could smile, dreadful though the words sound. But I know you mean every word you say, and I feel so sorry because—because I love you and wish you knew how good a thing, how happy a thing it is to forgive.”
Merritt stared blankly at his patient for a few moments and then snorted, “Forgive, hay! Yes, I’d forgive ’em when they was fixed so’s they couldn’t do any more harm. But if forgivin’ ’em means lettin’ ’em loose again to go on the same as before an’ murder some chap that’s worth a whole regiment of ’em, why then I calls that such silly nonsense that I won’t talk about it, not even to you. Never mind, I’ve often wondered what good I was in the world and now I know—to look after a great soft-hearted baby like you, who’d almost lie down and let anybody walk over ye an’ thank ’em for doin’ it. But that’s enough now, you go to sleep an’ get better more quicker.”
CHAPTER XIV A Momentous Passage
Thenceforward the speed with which the wounded man got better was marvellous except to those who knew how the body of man under primitive conditions and perfectly healthy can recover from what in civilization must be fatal injuries. I have alluded to this in one of the earliest chapters in dealing with the accident to Philip, C. B.’s father, although his injuries were far less dangerous than those that his son had just sustained. But in four days after the ship had left Honolulu, C. B. was able to come on deck without assistance, and to take short walks up and down the deck until pain within, along the track of the newly-healed wound, warned him to rest.