Just then the howitzer spoke again, and another shrapnel flew wide of the schooner and burst among the sand dunes. Another and another followed at short intervals, and then the firing ceased. The launch had given it up as a bad job; the pursuit was over and Marcy and the captain were the only ones injured.
"She has either run hard and fast aground, or else she is amusing herself with them buoys of our'n," said Beardsley, when he became satisfied that the launch was no longer following in the schooner's wake. "Now, where's that good-looking son of mine who fired the lucky shot that tumbled that Yankee officer overboard? Whoever he is, I'll double his wages. He ought to have it, for he saved the vessel and her cargo. Let him show up."
The second mate obeyed the order, exhibiting the revolver that had fired the shot, and the captain complimented him in no measured terms. Marcy could not help acknowledging to himself that their escape was owing entirely to the prompt action the mate had taken without waiting for orders; but all the same he was sorry for that Federal officer.
Less than an hour's run sufficed to take the schooner out of the Inlet and into the Sound, and when Beardsley had given out the course and seen the sails trimmed to suit it, he went into his cabin, from which he presently issued to pass the word for Marcy Gray. When the boy descended the ladder he found the first mate and two foremast hands there besides the captain; and on the table he saw two pieces of thin board, and several strips of cloth that had evidently been torn up for bandages. He noticed, too, that the atmosphere was filled with the odor of liniment.
"What are you going to do?" he asked, in some alarm.
"We're going to set that—that—what-do-you-call-it of your'n," replied the captain cheerfully. The name that Marcy had given to the bone of his upper arm was too much for him. He could not remember it.
The boy knew that all sea captains have more or less knowledge of medicine and surgery. It is necessary that they should have, for sailors are often seized with illness, or meet with serious accidents when their ship is at sea, and so far from a doctor that without immediate aid from some source they would surely lose their lives. Marcy had read of a whaling captain, one of whose men was jerked overboard from his boat by a wounded whale, dragged for six hundred feet or more through the water with frightful speed, and who was finally released by his leg giving way to the strain. The captain saw that that leg must be attended to or the man would die. His crew were too badly frightened to help him, so he amputated the injured member himself; and all the surgical instruments his ship afforded were a carving-knife, a carpenter's saw, and a fish-hook. But he saved the man's life. Marcy thought of this and shuddered at the thought of submitting himself to Beardsley's rude surgery.
"I believe I would rather wait until we get to Newbern," said he doubtfully.
"Why, man alive, we may not see port for a week," answered the captain. "How do we know but what there are a dozen or more steam launches, like the one we've just left astern, loafing about in the Sound waiting for us? If there are, we'll have to get shet of 'em somehow, and that will take time. If we don't 'tend to your arm now, it may be so bad when the doctor sees it that he can't do nothing with it without half killing of you. Take off his coat and vest, men; and Morgan, you roll up his sleeve. There is folks around home who think you are for the Union, and that you ain't secesh, even if you do belong to my vessel. If you run foul of one of 'em while you are gone on your furlong, just point to your arm and tell him to hold his yawp."
"Are you going to give me a leave of absence?" asked Marcy, who was so delighted at the thought that he could scarcely keep from showing it.