CHAPTER XIV
WITHIN A YARD OF THEM LAY POOR FISHER'S HEAD
Admittedly the best warrant officer on board the Breezy was the chief boatswain, Fisher. He had been on the coast years and years ago, and knew the Arabs well, and all their tricks and manners too. He hated them with a fiery kind of hatred that nothing could have quenched.
Nothing ever did, he once told McTavish, except blood, and that blood had to be Arab blood.
"If you had seen what I have seen in the old days," he added, "but now I'm wearin' on, sir, and soon will get my pension, or my last shot."
"You've been wounded before, then?"
"Good lord, yes! You see this slash across my brow, doctor?"
"A blind man could see that, Fisher."
He drew up his right trouser leg and disclosed an ugly hole below the knee.
"A bullet, sir. No, it didn't splinter. It went clean through. I have another in the right wrist. Another skirmish, sir. And I had a spear-wound right through me. I stuck to my man that day though, and pretty nigh cut him to the chin. Oh yes, I've knocked about a piece. Most of the swell Arabs know me and would pot me anywhere if sure of getting away with whole skins or an unstretched neck."