Stoddart, the second engineer, was kneeling beside the poor fellow, rubbing his hands and holding every now and then to his nose what seemed to me a bottle of ammonia or some very pungent restorative, the powerful fumes of which overcame the foetid atmosphere of the stoke-hold, Mr Stokes, looking almost as pale as the unconscious man, assisting with his unwounded arm, with which he lifted Jackson’s head, his broken one being already set in splints by our doctor-mate.
Blanchard, the other sufferer from the accident, was sitting down on a bench near by, evidently recovering from the shock he had experienced, which really was not so serious as at first anticipated, a rather stiff glass of brandy and water which Garry had given him, having pretty soon brought him to himself.
All our attention, therefore, concentrated on Jackson, who, as yet, made no sign of amendment, in spite of every remedy tried by O’Neil.
“By George!” exclaimed Mr Stokes, a few minutes later when we all began to despair of ever bringing him back to life again. “I’m sure I felt his head move then!”
“Aye, sir,” corroborated Stoddart, pressing his hand gently on Jackson’s chest, to feel his heart, where a slight convulsive movement became perceptible, at first feeble and uncertain enough, as you may suppose, but then more and more sustained and regular, as if the lungs were getting to work again. “Look alive! he’s beginning to breathe again—and—yes—his heart beats, I declare, quite plain!”
“Hurray!” shouted Garry O’Neil, hastily putting to his patient’s lips a medicine glass, into which he dropped something out of a small vial, filling up the glass with water. “I’ve got something here shtrang enough, begorrah, to make a dead man spake!”
The effect of the drug, whatever it was, seemed magical. In an instant the previously motionless figure moved about uneasily, the pulsation of his chest grew more rapid and pronounced, and then, stretching out his clenched hands with a jerk, as if he were suddenly galvanised into life, thereby displaying the magnificent proportions of his torso, he being stripped to the waist, Jackson opened his eyes, drawing a deep breath the while, a breath something between a sob and a sigh!
“Where—where am I?” he said, looking round with a sort of far-away, dreamy stare, but meeting Mr Stokes’ sympathetic gaze, he at once seemed to recover his consciousness. “Ah, I know, sir. I found out what was the matter with the suction before that plate buckled and gripped me. I have cleared the rose box, too, sir, and you can connect the bilge-pumps again as soon as you like, sir.”
Of course all this took him some time to get out.
“All right, my man,” answered the old chief, greatly overcome at the fact of the old sailor, wounded to the death, thinking of his duty in the first moment of his recovery. “Never mind that, man! How do you feel now, my poor fellow—better, I trust?”