We were all very much amused and had a good laugh at this naïve confession, even Colonel Vereker sharing in the general mirth, in spite of his profound melancholy and the pain he felt from his wounded leg, which made him wince every now and again, I noticed, during the narration of the story Garry O’Neil had thus told, with the utmost good humour, it must be confessed, at his own expense, as, indeed, he had made us understand beforehand that it would be.
“By George!” cried the skipper, after having his laugh out, “you’ll be the death of me some day with your queer yarns if you can’t manage to do for me with your professional skill or by the aid of your drugs and lotions, poisons, most of ’em, and all your murderous-looking instruments, besides!”
“No fear of that, cap’en; you’re too tough a customer,” rejoined the doctor with a knowing look in the direction of Mr Stokes, who had made himself purple in the face and was panting and puffing on his seat, trying to recover his breath. “Faith, though, sor, talkin’ of medical skill, the sooner I say afther that leg of our fri’nd here, the better, I’m thinkin’.”
“With the best of wills,” assented the colonel, who had finished his luncheon by this time and certainly presented a much improved appearance to that he had worn when entering the saloon. “I am quite at your service, doctor, and promise to be as quiet as that first patient of yours of whom you’ve just told us!”
“Belay that, colonel; none o’ your chaff about the ould leddy, if you love me, sure!” growled Garry, pretending to be indignant as he knelt down on the cabin floor and slit up the leg of the colonel’s trousers so as to inspect the wound. His nonsensical, quizzing manner changed instantly, however, on seeing the serious state of the injured limb, and he ejaculated in a subdued tone of voice, “Holy Moses!”
“Why, sir,” said the patient quietly, “what’s the matter now?”
“Ah, an’ ye are axin’ what’s the mather?” cried Garry in a still more astonished tone. “Faith, it’s wantin’ to know I am how the divvle you’ve iver been able to move about at all, at all, colonel, with that thing there. Look at it now, an’ till me what ye think of it yoursilf, me darlint. May the saints presairve us, but did any one iver say such a leg?”
It was, in truth, a fearful-looking object, being swollen to the most abnormal proportions from the ankle joint to the thigh, while the skin was of a dark hue, save where some extravasated blood clustered about a small punctured orifice just above the knee.
Colonel Vereker laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
“The fortune of war,” he explained. “One of those brutes shot me where that mark is, but I think the bullet travelled all round my thigh and lodged somewhere in the groin, I fancy, for I feel a lump there.”