The knowledge that another was suffering seemed to renew the doctor’s strength.
“Let me see,” he said, more firmly.
Carey hesitated, but the stern eyes forced him to obey, and as he sat there with the last rays of the setting sun streaming into the cabin, he bared his breast, to show a great red patch as large as the palm of his hand.
“Spent or badly loaded bullet, Carey,” said the doctor, faintly. “Painful, but no danger, lad. The skin is not pierced.” He could say no more, but lay holding the lad’s hand, while Jackum watched in the midst of an intense silence, till a shot suddenly rang out, just as the cabin was darkening.
“Hullo! What’s that mean?” came in a deep growl from the top of the cabin stairs.
“Ahoy there!” roared Mallam. “Where’s that there doctor?”
“You ought to know,” shouted Bostock, every word in the silence of the gathering night sounding plainly on the listeners’ ears. “Down below, with your shot in his limb.”
“Curse his limb!” roared Mallam.
“Look ye here,” said Bostock, in hoarse, stentorian tones, “I’ve got a double gun, double-loaded, in my fins, and I’m pynting down straight at you, my old beachcomber; and I tell you what it is, if you begin any of your games again I looses off both barrels and ends you. D’yer hear?”
“Yes, I hear, cooky. I won’t fire any more. You must bring that doctor down to see to me. I’m wrecked.”