“Oh yes, sir, I should think there’d be plenty of them in the river: sure to be in a hot country like this.”
“I wish I could feel sure they were safe.”
Tom Fillot’s look at the young officer was a mingling of admiration and contempt.
“It’s very nyste of you, sir, to think so much about the enemies as nearly killed our Mr Russell, I didn’t think nothing o’ them. I was hard at it about our poor chaps as has been knocked about, and the way they bear it all without hollering is, I says, sir, a credit to a Englishman, let alone a Scotchman such as Dick Bannock is. As I says afore, it’s wonderful as none of us was killed, being whacked over the head as we was, ’sides being nigh drownded.”
“It was wonderful, Tom, and if only poor Mr Russell would come round, I should be as happy as could be. But he doesn’t show a sign of recovery.”
“No, sir, he don’t, but there’s the t’other side o’ the book in keeping account like—he don’t show no sign o’ getting worse and dying. You know what’s the matter with him, o’ course?”
“Matter?” said Mark, looking at the man wonderingly, as the schooner glided along, a mile away from the coast, the evening after their struggle in the river. “Of course I do. He was beaten about the head worse than any of us.”
“’Zactly, sir; but did you examine on him?”
“Yes, and retied the bandage about his head.”
“That’s good, sir; but you didn’t find out quite what was the matter.”