The discovery that Tom existed had robbed our perils of three parts of their suffering; and now, with feelings of real anxiety respecting the treasure springing up, I hurried back again to the landing-place, to find all well, for the place was too Spanish and lazy for our coming to create much excitement.
“Say, Mas’r Harry,” cried Tom, grinning hugely, in spite of his pale face and exhaustion, “I’ve got you now. I said you was to let me have a pound a week; I must go in for thirty bob after this. Come, now, no shirking. Say yes, or I’m hanged if I don’t scuttle the canoe.”
It was evident, though, that Tom had undergone a great deal, and was far from able to bear much more; for that evening, after telling the Indian porters that I was a sort of curiosity and stone collector, and getting the treasure carried up safely to the house which I had taken, he suddenly gave a lurch, and would have fallen had I not caught his arm.
“Why, Tom!” I cried anxiously.
“I think, Mas’r Harry,” he said softly, “it might be as well if you was to let a doctor look at me—it would be just as well. I’ve a bullet in me somewhere, and that knife—”
“Bullet—knife, Tom?”
“Yes, Mas’r Harry, that Garcia—but I’ll tell you all about it after.”
The doctor I hastily summoned looked serious as he examined Tom’s hurts; and though, with insular pride, I rather looked down upon Spanish doctors, this gentleman soon proved himself of no mean skill in surgery, and under his care Tom rapidly approached convalescence.
“You see, Mas’r Harry, it was after this fashion,” said Tom one evening as I sat by his bedside indulging in a cup of coffee, just when one of the afternoon rains had cooled the earth, and the air that was wafted through the open window was delicious. “You see it was after this fashion—”
“But are you strong enough to talk about it, Tom?” I said anxiously.