“Hurts? Horrid! It is just as if somebody was trying to bore a hole in my skull with a red-hot auger.”
Poole sprang up, soaked a handkerchief with water, folded it into a square patch, and laid it on the injured place, dealing as tenderly with his patient as if his fingers were those of a woman, with the result that the pain became dull and Fitz lay back in his bunk with his eyes half-closed.
“Feel well enough to have a game of draughts?” said Poole, after a pause.
“No; and you haven’t got a board.”
“But I have got a big card that I marked out myself, and blackened some of the squares with ink.”
“Where are your men?”
“Hanging up in that bag.”
“Let’s look.”
Poole took a little canvas bag from the hook from which it hung and turned out a very decent set of black and white pieces. “You didn’t make those?”
“Yes, I did.”