“Why, Tanner, old chap,” I cried, catching his hand as my eyes were blurred; “I didn’t know you were hurt.”
He looked quite pleased at my weakness, and the emotion I showed.
“Oh, it ain’t much,” he said, smiling and holding on to my hand very tightly; “but it pringles and sticks a bit, I mean stingles—no, I don’t! My tongue’s getting all in a knot, it tingles and pricks a bit. I say, Gnat, old chap, you don’t think those chaps carry poisoned knives, do you?”
“What, like the Malays? Oh no.”
“I’m glad of that, because it made me feel a bit funky. I thought this stinging might mean the poison spreading.”
“Oh no, don’t think that,” I cried; “and some one told me a Malay prince said it was all nonsense about the knives being poisoned.”
“He did?”
“Yes; he laughed, and said there was no need to poison them, they were quite sharp enough to kill a man without.”
“That depends on where you put it in,” said Barkins grimly.
“Yes,” I said; “but what did the doctor say?”