"Wha's this? Where did ye get him?"
"His name's Scot and we brought him from Wolf's schooner. He's hurt."
"Maybe; the bandage indicates it," said Macallister, who studied the man. "For a' that, I alloo he's drunk."
Kit was surprised and rather indignant, but Macallister grinned.
"I'm telling ye, and I ought to ken."
"Verdad!" said the captain. "Don Pedro savvy much. Me, I savvy something too. Es cierto. The animal is drunk."
The ship was crowded by emigrants for Cuba and when they had put a pillow under Scot's head, Kit went for his dispatch box and got to work. At midnight he returned to the mess-room and found Scot sitting up with his back against the bulkhead. His eyes were dull and his pose was slack, but he awkwardly sucked up some liquor through a maize stalk. Macallister sat opposite, looking sympathetic.
"Is that stuff good for him?" Kit asked.
"D'ye ken what the stuff is?" Macallister rejoined.
Kit admitted that he did not and remembered that the other sometimes doctored the captain from the ship's medicine-chest. When Don Erminio had friends on board his throat was generally bad.