He went behind the prostrate man, who lay perfectly insensible, and kept on talking hurriedly as he took out a penknife and used it freely to get at the injury in the shoulder.
“Why didn’t he speak? You were right, then, Guest. Some scoundrel has been here. Curse him! we’ll have him hung. To be sure—a bullet gone right through here—no; regularly ploughed his flesh. Thank Heaven! not a dangerous wound. I can bandage it. But too much for a bridegroom. Poor lad! poor lad!”
He tore up his own handkerchief and made a pad of his sister’s, but these were not enough. “Look here, Rebecca,” he said; “you’d better go and leave us.”
“Nonsense!” said the lady sternly. “Go on with your work, and then a doctor must be fetched.”
“Very well, then, if you will stay. There, don’t try to revive him yet. Let’s finish. Guest, my lad, take that knife and slit one of the sheets in the next room; then tear off a bandage four inches wide and as long as you can. Let’s stop the bleeding, and he won’t hurt.”
All was done as he ordered, and the bandage roughly fixed, Stratton perfectly insensible the while.
“’Becca, my dear—Guest, my lad,” said the admiral huskily. “Never felt so sorry in my life.” Then, taking Stratton’s hand between both his own, he said, in a low voice, “I beg your pardon, my lad, humbly.”
“I don’t like this long insensibility, Mark,” said Miss Jerrold.
“No; it’s too long. Has he any rum or brandy in the place?”
“Yes,” said Guest eagerly, and he hurried to the door of the bath-closet, and turned the handle, but it was locked. “How tiresome!” he muttered. “Here, I know.”