"Don't take him below yet," said Ferrier. "Lennard, you help me. Why, you've let his cap get stuck to his head, my man. Warm water, steward".
The man was really suffering only from extreme loss of blood; a falling block had hit him, and a ghastly flap was torn away from his scalp. That steady, deft Scotchman worked away, in spite of the awkward roll of the vessel, like lightning. He cut away the clotted hair, cleansed the wound; then he said sharply—
"How did you come to let your shipmate lose so much blood?"
"Why, sir, we hadn't not so much as a pocket-handkerchief aboard. We tried a big handful of salt, but that made him holler awful before he lost his senses, and the wessel was makin' such heavy weather of it, we couldn't spare a man to hould him when he was rollin' on the cabin floor."
"Yes, sir; Lord, save us!" said another battered, begrimed fellow. "If he'd a-rolled agen the stove we couldn't done nothin'. We was hard put to it to save the wessel and ourselves."
"I see now. Steward, my case. This must be sewn up."
Ferrier had hardly drawn three stitches through, when one of the seamen fainted away, and this complication, added to the inexorable roll of the yacht, made Ferrier's task a hard one; but the indomitable Scot was on his mettle. He finished his work, and then said—
"Now, my lads, you cannot take your mate on board again. I'm going to give him my own berth, and he'll stay here."
"How are we to get him again, sir?"
"That I don't know. I only know that he'll die if he has to be flung about any more."