Li Fu stepped past him. Barnes, disregarding the hand of Nora Sayers, lifted himself forward a little and dropped near the bow thwart, beside Ellen Maggs. The three children were up in the bow, chattering away and delighted with the chase.
"You're hurt?" cried Ellen Maggs, leaning toward Barnes. He laughed lightly, though his lips were graying, as he looked into her eyes.
"Aye. Nora, pass up that little black medicine chest, will you? It's stowed under your thwart, I think, with the lantern and other stuff that was in the boat. Does either of you girls know anything about surgery?"
"I do," said Ellen Maggs. Her cheeks were very white, her eyes large. "Only a little——"
Barnes put his hand under his shirt and examined his side gingerly. Then, with a grimace, he wriggled out of his jacket. He took the sheath-knife which Li Fu tossed forward on demand, and cut at the right side of his shirt. Nora Sayers, her face drawn and anxious, would have come with the medicine case, but Barnes checked her.
"Stay where you are, Nora. We're fighting to reach land ahead of those devils, and every bit of trim to the boat counts a lot. Throw it; that's right. Now Ellen, the bullet went in under the right arm and is bulging out the skin here on my right side. Cut the skin and it'll pop out. I'm not left-handed or I could do it. Then douse on plenty of iodine fore and aft, and clap on some kind of a bandage."
He lay back and threw up his arms, gripping the corks outside the gunwale, and so lay motionless, waiting. The girl leaned forward, her lips clenched.
"Don't worry; it won't hurt," he said easily. "You, Li Fu! Open up. Are they gaining on us, or holding steady?"
"Plenty steady," responded the quartermaster. At the next wave-crest he fired.
His feet braced, Barnes lay motionless, and a smile crept to his pallid lips as he noted the deft certainty with which the girl attacked her task. Twice she started to cut, and flinched; then, desperately, she set the keen steel to the white skin. In five seconds it was done. The bullet fell from her reddened fingers and bounced on the thin sheathing.