“I must go, I must go,” he exclaimed in anxious tones; “if it be only to prove whether I am a coward or no. Chester spoke very kindly to me, but I believe he thinks I am afraid. It will be dreadful, I know—the flashing cutlasses, the fierce thrust of pikes, and perhaps the fire of grape and canister. And there will be gaping wounds, and blood—blood everywhere; and oh! the suffering there will be; I have read of it all—the burning, unquenchable thirst, the throbbing and quivering of agonised limbs, and the upturned glance of unendurable torture. How can I possibly bear to look upon it all? And perhaps I may be one of the wounded—or the slain. And if I am, what then? I do not care about pain for myself, I can bear it; but it is the sufferings of others that I dread to see. And if I am killed—why, I shall die doing my duty, and I am not afraid of death; I have never done anything that I need be ashamed of; I never did anything mean or dishonourable; I have always tried to be kind to every one; and I have read the Bible regularly which my poor dear mother gave me.”
He paused a little. Then the tears welled slowly up into his eyes. “I am dying—I know it, though none of them have said so. I wonder whether my father will be sorry. He is a proud man and stern—very stern; I cannot remember that he ever kissed me, and I have never been able to tell whether he cares for me or no. But I believe he does—I hope he does; and at all events, he need not be ashamed of me, for I have proved that I am no coward. My mother will grieve for me, though; it will break her heart and—oh!”
Here a violent flood of tears came to the poor boy’s relief, and he sobbed as though his heart would break.
“Phew!” exclaimed the skipper. “This will never do; he is too weak to bear this, I am sure. Run for Oxley, and tell him to come at once, Ralph; we must stop this at any cost.”
I rushed out of the cabin, and returned in another minute with the doctor.
The poor boy was still sobbing occasionally, but he was crying more quietly now, and lying quite still in his hammock, instead of moving his limbs restlessly about as he had been.
The doctor leaned over the cot, felt his pulse, and laid his hand upon his patient’s forehead.
“It is a dreadful tax upon his already exhausted strength,” said the medico, “but I believe in the present case it has done good rather than harm. However, it will not do to risk a repetition of this sort of thing, so I will give him a mild opiate, although I would much rather not, in his present exhausted condition.”
He leaned over the cot once more with his finger on the lad’s pulse, and gazed long and anxiously in the pale, upturned face, as though revolving in his mind some weighty problem. Then, turning abruptly away, he left the cabin, beckoning me to follow.
As he was mixing the draught in the dispensary, he remarked,—